Why India Still Needs BRICS?

India works with the US through the Quad, seeks American technology and investment and steadily expands defence cooperation with Washington. At the same time, it retains its longstanding strategic relationship with Russia. It competes with China while sitting alongside it in BRICS and the SCO. It engages Iran while maintaining close relations with Israel and the Arab Gulf states.

To some, this may appear contradictory. In reality, it reflects the way India has increasingly chosen to position itself in a changing world; maintaining relationships across geopolitical divides without allowing any one relationship to determine all the others. Pragmatic and interest based, as all foreign policy pursuits are supposed to be.

BRICS needs to be understood in the above context.

The grouping India originally joined has undoubtedly changed. It is larger, more political and potentially more uncomfortable for India. China is its most powerful member. Russia increasingly sees BRICS as part of a world less dominated by the West, while Iran brings an unmistakably anti-American dimension.

A Different BRICS
The original BRICS was relatively easy to explain. Five major emerging economies wanted greater influence in an international system whose principal institutions continued to reflect the distribution of power after the Second World War. The expanded BRICS has 11 members, represents almost half the world's population and around 40% of global GDP. Size has brought greater weight, but also more diverse political interests.

China, Russia and Iran do not necessarily view BRICS in the same way as India does. Beijing sees the changing global balance as an opportunity to expand Chinese influence. Russia, under sustained Western pressure, has every reason to encourage institutions outside Western control. Iran has lived with American sanctions for decades and naturally seeks mechanisms which reduce Western financial leverage. India has a different purpose.

It wants reform of global governance, greater representation for developing countries and more space for independent decision-making. It wants the UN Security Council and international financial institutions to reflect contemporary realities. Yet India has also been a major beneficiary of globalisation and has little reason to dismantle the system itself. Thus, India seeks reform, not rupture.

This difference is precisely why remaining within BRICS makes sense. If India walked away, China would not become less influential. Russia would not alter its geopolitical orientation and the Global South would not abandon its demand for a greater voice. India would simply surrender its ability to influence the direction in which an increasingly important grouping evolves.

China, US and the Indian Interest
China is both India's greatest concern within BRICS and one of the strongest reasons for remaining there. Beijing’s economic weight gives it enormous influence. As BRICS expands, China will inevitably seek to convert some of that weight into political influence across the Global South. India cannot counter this by vacating institutions where China is powerful. It has to compete within them.

That does not mean converting every BRICS discussion into an India-China contest. It means ensuring that alternative perspectives remain present and that BRICS does not gradually acquire an identity determined overwhelmingly by Beijing.

There is another audience which India cannot ignore: the US.

American unease about BRICS is understandable. The US sees China, Russia and Iran in the same grouping, hears discussion about national currencies and alternative payment mechanisms and encounters repeated criticism of Western dominance of global institutions. From that perspective, BRICS can easily appear to be evolving into an anti-Western coalition.

The mistake would be to assume that everyone sitting around the BRICS table is there for the same reason. Different national aspirations can still converge on common objectives without implying a common geopolitical purpose. India, China, Russia and Iran may agree that the present global order requires reform, but their reasons for wanting that reform—and the kind of order they would ultimately prefer—are quite different.

India is certainly not there to conduct a campaign against the dollar or to replace American dominance with Chinese dominance. Greater use of national currencies in bilateral trade can make commercial sense without becoming an ideological project. The New Development Bank can supplement existing international financial institutions without having to challenge their very existence.

Strategic autonomy allows India to pursue such choices without having to subscribe to the entire geopolitical agenda of its partners.

In fact, Washington could look at India's presence differently. An influential India within BRICS makes an ideologically coherent anti-Western grouping less likely. If American concern is about BRICS becoming increasingly China-led, India remaining inside should be preferable to India vacating the field.

What Delhi Can Achieve
The Delhi summit brings many of these contradictions into the same room. Russia remains locked in the Ukraine conflict. West Asia continues to face instability. India and China are attempting to stabilise a relationship badly damaged by events along the LAC since 2020. At the same time, several BRICS members retain important relationships with the US and Europe.

BRICS cannot resolve these issues due to sheer complexities involved. Yet diplomacy also depends upon keeping channels open between countries whose interests frequently diverge. BRICS can provide such space because it is not an alliance. It is closer to a club of nations which share some interests while differing substantially on others.

For India, the summit can therefore be approached through three relatively simple objectives: peace, business and stability.

Peace does not require India to offer mediation in every conflict. It requires maintaining access across divides and using that access where useful. Few major powers today retain meaningful relationships across as wide a geopolitical spectrum as India does.

Business is equally important. BRICS will ultimately be judged less by declarations about multipolarity than by whether it can improve trade, investment, development finance, energy cooperation, technology partnerships, supply-chain resilience and payment systems. These are areas where cooperation can produce tangible gains without demanding geopolitical conformity.

Stability is perhaps the wider Indian interest. Another world divided into rigid camps would restrict India's choices. Its continued rise requires American technology and investment, Russian energy and defence links, markets across Europe and Asia and sustained engagement with the Global South. India benefits from a world in which these relationships can coexist.

Why India Still Needs BRICS?
This is perhaps also why the contradictions within BRICS should not surprise us too much. India and China remain strategic competitors. Iran and the Gulf states have their own differences. Egypt and Ethiopia have disputed important regional issues. Some BRICS members work closely with Washington while others see American power as a threat. Yet they continue to find sufficient common ground to sit together.

That may be closer to the emerging international order than the familiar language of competing blocs suggests. Nations increasingly want different partnerships for different purposes. Security may bring one set of countries together, technology another, energy a third and trade yet another.

India has been practising this form of statecraft for some time.

Its objective is neither to preserve an international system permanently dominated by the West nor to assist in creating another dominated by China. It seeks a more representative order in which its own freedom of decision and influence continue to grow.

There is therefore no reason for India to be apologetic about its presence in BRICS. Nor should it be indifferent to the direction the grouping takes.

The challenge is to keep BRICS focused on development, economic cooperation, reform of global institutions and dialogue across geopolitical divides, while resisting attempts to turn it into an essentially anti-American or anti-Western platform.

If India can help achieve that, it will serve both its own strategic interests and those of many countries in the Global South which similarly do not wish to choose permanent camps.

India does need the US. It also values its old relationship with Russia. It must compete and coexist with China. It seeks a larger role in the Global South. None of these relationships cancels out the others.

That is the strategic reality of the world India now inhabits. It is also the strongest reason why India still needs BRICS.