BRICS

https://www.aviation-defence-universe.com/the-delhi-consensus-india-gets-a-divided-brics-to-speak-in-one-voice/ The Delhi Consensus: India Gets a Divided BRICS to Speak in One Voice • 140 Points, 11 Nations, One Big Challenge: Building Consensus in a Bloc of Contradictions • Delhi Delivers: From Differences to Declaration – The Great BRICS Balancing Act • Diplomacy Amid Division: Beyond Russia, China & the West: A Pragmatic Course for BRICS By Jai Kumar Verma New Delhi. 28 September 2026. Eleven countries, competing strategic interests, wars and geopolitical rivalries—and yet, a joint declaration emerged. That may be the defining story of India’s BRICS presidency in 2026. The challenge before New Delhi was never to make an expanded BRICS think alike; it was to make countries that often think differently find enough common ground to act together. Through more than 400 meetings across 30 Indian cities and a carefully calibrated diplomatic approach, India steered the grouping towards the 140-point New Delhi Declaration, spanning global governance reform, economic cooperation, technology, development, security and people-to-people engagement. The result was not unanimity, but something potentially more consequential: a Delhi Consensus built around cooperation despite contradiction. The real test of India’s BRICS presidency was never whether 11 countries could agree on everything, but whether they could agree on anything consequential. In New Delhi, they did. That is the significance of the New Delhi Declaration. An expanded BRICS now brings together countries with markedly different political systems, economic interests and foreign-policy priorities, against a backdrop of wars, strategic rivalries and geopolitical tensions. Reaching a common declaration demonstrated that, despite this diversity, BRICS can continue to function through consultation, consensus and practical cooperation. Yet, consensus should not be mistaken for uniformity. The New Delhi Declaration provides a common diplomatic language for an increasingly diverse grouping, but it does not erase the strategic and economic differences among its members. Its significance therefore lies less in creating unanimity than in demonstrating that these differences need not prevent collective engagement. India’s achievement was to build sufficient common ground for an expanded BRICS to speak together without requiring its members to think alike. The Delhi Consensus is thus both a diplomatic achievement and a reflection of the balancing act that will shape the future of the “Greater BRICS” architecture. India as the Bridge-Builder India’s 2026 BRICS presidency was defined less by an attempt to impose ideological coherence on an increasingly diverse grouping than by an effort to make it operationally useful. Under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, New Delhi placed practical cooperation, development and institutional reform alongside the more contentious geopolitical questions confronting the bloc. This required navigating sharply different positions on West Asia, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, trade, sanctions and the reform of global financial institutions. The New Delhi Declaration’s emphasis on dialogue, consultation and diplomacy, while acknowledging the diversity of national positions, reflected precisely this approach. India’s hosting of the BRICS Plus/Outreach Dialogue further extended this bridge-building effort towards partner countries and the wider Global South. The significance of the exercise, therefore, lies not in making BRICS uniform, but in demonstrating that its members can remain divided on major questions while still identifying areas in which collective action is possible. The New Delhi Declaration: The Principal Diplomatic Achievement The principal diplomatic outcome of the New Delhi Summit was not simply the adoption of a 140-point declaration, but the breadth of issues on which an increasingly diverse BRICS articulated common positions. The Declaration covers political and security cooperation, economic and financial coordination, sustainable development, science and technology, global governance and people-to-people exchanges, while also deepening engagement with partner countries. It calls for a more representative multilateral system and greater participation of emerging and developing economies in global institutions, alongside cooperation on trade, cross-border payments, development finance, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, health, climate and innovation. These initiatives are grounded in sovereign equality, mutual respect, solidarity, inclusiveness and consensus. The significance lies in demonstrating that an enlarged and heterogeneous BRICS can still establish common ground across a wide policy agenda. The Declaration does not resolve underlying geopolitical differences or BRICS’ institutional challenges, but it demonstrates that these need not prevent collective engagement. For India, securing this breadth of consensus was therefore a substantive diplomatic achievement. Global Governance: India Puts Reform Back at the Centre One of the clearest achievements of India’s BRICS presidency was to place reform of global governance at the centre of the grouping’s agenda. The New Delhi Declaration calls for a more representative, effective and accountable multilateral system and, significantly, gives renewed attention to reform of the United Nations Security Council. BRICS members reiterated the need for greater representation of developing countries, including from Africa, Asia and Latin America, and specifically recognised the aspirations of Brazil and India to play a greater role in the UN and the Security Council. The same reformist approach extends to the international financial architecture. The Declaration calls for the Bretton Woods Institutions to become more representative of the contemporary global economy and demands greater voice and representation for emerging-market and developing economies. On the IMF, it calls for the implementation of quota increases agreed under the 16th General Review of Quotas and for meaningful quota realignment under the 17th Review, while reaffirming the need for a strong, quota-based and adequately resourced Fund. India’s contribution, therefore, was not simply to give BRICS another platform from which to criticise the existing international order. It helped frame the debate around the more consequential question of how that order should be reformed — who gets representation, how institutional power is distributed and whether global institutions reflect the economic and political realities of the 21st century. That distinction gives the Delhi Consensus a more substantive meaning: consensus was used not merely to oppose, but to advance an alternative reform agenda. The Economic Architecture: From Supply Chains to Financial Connectivity If geopolitics attracts the headlines, BRICS’ economic agenda may ultimately determine its institutional durability. The New Delhi Declaration signals a shift from broad commitments towards more practical economic architecture. Its emphasis on Global Value Chains (GVCs) seeks resilient, predictable and inclusive supply chains through trade facilitation, connectivity, industrial capacity and access to technology, while recognising the need for developing economies to move into higher-value segments of global production. India also received recognition for advancing the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy 2030 as an overarching framework for sectoral cooperation. Financial connectivity forms a complementary pillar of this architecture. The Declaration welcomes progress towards interoperable payment and messaging systems and encourages cooperation on cross-border payments, trade settlements and transactions in local currencies. Yet its approach remains deliberately pragmatic, acknowledging that there is “no one-size-fits-all approach” rather than proposing a common BRICS currency or unified monetary system. This distinction is significant: payment interoperability and greater use of local currencies represent incremental financial integration, not a replacement for existing monetary arrangements. Taken together, the Delhi agenda suggests that BRICS is seeking to build practical mechanisms for trade, production, investment and financial connectivity—potentially more consequential for its long-term economic relevance than speculation over a common currency. Technology and Innovation: BRICS Looks Beyond Geopolitics The technology agenda offers a pathway for BRICS to move beyond geopolitics. The New Delhi Declaration strengthens cooperation through 14 Science, Technology and Innovation Working Groups and welcomes the proposed BRICS Science and Research Repository, alongside collaboration in quantum technologies, sustainable development and digitalised global value chains. For India, this creates opportunities to leverage BRICS for research partnerships, technology access and innovation among emerging economies, potentially strengthening its participation in future high-value global production networks and giving BRICS a more practical, forward-looking purpose. West Asia and the Diplomatic Tightrope The most difficult test of the Delhi Consensus came from West Asia, where BRICS members have divergent strategic interests. Iran’s position, the UAE’s security calculations and Gulf states’ relationships with the United States and Israel made a common formulation sensitive. Yet the New Delhi Declaration secured language calling for restraint, diplomacy, respect for sovereignty and international law, protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, and preservation of commercial and maritime flows. The meeting between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan further illustrated this diplomatic space. For India, the episode reflected the complexity of maintaining strong relationships with competing regional partners, including the UAE, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The wider regional landscape remains fluid, with shifting security partnerships and alignments. The Delhi Consensus therefore demonstrated both the value and limits of BRICS diplomacy: where members’ strategic interests diverge, consensus necessarily rests on carefully calibrated language. Its achievement was not eliminating these differences, but creating sufficient diplomatic space for them to coexist within a common framework. India-China Dimension Perhaps the most consequential bilateral engagement on the margins of the BRICS Summit was the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping. Xi’s first visit to India in seven years added strategic significance as both countries seek to stabilise relations after the 2020 border crisis. The leaders acknowledged progress since their August 2025 meeting in Tianjin and agreed that differences should not become disputes. Modi stressed mutual respect, sensitivity and interest, while emphasising that peace and tranquillity along the border remain essential. They also discussed the boundary question, people-to-people exchanges, business links, trade imbalances, supply chains and market access. The meeting, however, does not amount to a settlement of the relationship. Significant differences remain over the boundary, military deployments and economic asymmetries. Its wider importance lies in creating diplomatic space to manage these differences. This assumes added significance as the United States increasingly employs tariffs and trade restrictions as instruments of economic pressure. Both India and China therefore have an interest in preserving greater room for economic engagement, although their approaches to reducing dependence on the dollar are not identical. The BRICS declaration favoured greater use of local currencies and interoperable payment systems, while India has avoided endorsing a common currency or a China-led monetary framework. India-Russia: Strategic Continuity in a Changing BRICS The India-Russia engagement demonstrated the strategic continuity underpinning BRICS. Modi and President Vladimir Putin discussed trade, energy, defence, critical minerals, fertilisers, mobility and people-to-people exchanges, while reaffirming the goal of taking bilateral trade towards $100 billion by 2030. The relationship also illustrates India’s multi-alignment: New Delhi maintains substantial ties with Russia while simultaneously deepening partnerships with the United States, Europe and the Gulf. Strategic autonomy, therefore, does not require choosing between competing camps. Putin’s interventions at the BRICS Business Forum reflected Moscow’s preference for deeper economic cooperation in technology, infrastructure, investment and payments, alongside criticism of Western sanctions and trade restrictions. India, however, maintained a more calibrated position, emphasising dialogue and diplomacy on Ukraine while discussing the conflict’s economic consequences. This distinction captures the evolving RIC dynamic within BRICS: Russia views the grouping as an instrument for reshaping global economic structures, while India seeks a platform where competing powers can cooperate without strategic alignment. Pakistan and the Pahalgam Question The New Delhi Declaration carried particular significance for India in its reference to the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 26 people. BRICS condemned the attack in strong terms and reiterated its commitment to zero tolerance for terrorism, accountability, and action against terrorist movement, financing and safe havens. Significantly, China joined the consensus despite its close relationship with Pakistan. The Declaration did not name Pakistan or endorse India’s subsequent military response, but the formulation allowed India to secure language addressing a central security concern while preserving sufficient diplomatic space for the wider BRICS consensus. The American Lens: Watching BRICS from Outside For Washington, the Delhi Summit raised a broader strategic question: whether BRICS can evolve from a loose grouping into a more consequential platform for reducing dependence on Western-led economic and geopolitical structures. India occupies an unusual position in this equation. While the United States has deepened its partnership with New Delhi across the Indo-Pacific, technology and defence, India maintains substantial relationships with Russia and China. Greater coordination among these three powers within BRICS could therefore create a more complex strategic environment for Washington. The financial dimension adds another layer. BRICS’ support for local-currency transactions and interoperable payment systems does not amount to a common currency, but could gradually reduce reliance on the dollar for some intra-BRICS transactions. Russia and China favour greater financial diversification, while India has adopted a more pragmatic approach centred on payment efficiency and strategic autonomy. Its proposal to explore interoperability among BRICS central-bank digital currencies further expands this conversation. For Washington, the significance lies in this incremental evolution, not an immediate monetary rupture. The Less Visible Achievements: People, Business and Institutionalisation A less visible achievement of India’s BRICS presidency was the expansion of engagement beyond government-to-government diplomacy. Business, women’s entrepreneurship, parliamentary, academic, think-tank and civil-society forums created wider channels for cooperation, while initiatives such as the BRICS Solutions Awards supported research and innovation. This broader architecture matters for the grouping’s durability: sustained engagement among businesses, researchers, entrepreneurs and institutions can keep cooperation active between summits. India’s presidency therefore sought not merely to produce a declaration, but to strengthen the networks through which BRICS can function across sectors. Where the Fissures Remain The Delhi Consensus should not be confused with convergence. BRICS members can accommodate divergent geopolitical objectives through carefully calibrated language, but the greater test now is implementation. The 140-point Declaration will ultimately be judged by whether payment mechanisms become operational, trade and investment expand, business cooperation produces measurable outcomes, and science and technology initiatives move beyond proposals. Its emphasis on outcome-oriented coordination reflects this challenge. BRICS must therefore demonstrate that diplomatic consensus can generate durable mechanisms and tangible results. Expansion presents a related challenge. The enlarged grouping has greater economic and demographic weight and wider reach across the Global South, but also brings additional interests, strategic relationships and coordination demands. The larger BRICS becomes, the harder it may be to sustain meaningful common positions without reducing them to the lowest common denominator. West Asia already illustrates these limits. These challenges do not diminish BRICS’ relevance; rather, they will determine whether its growing institutional ambition can translate into sustained capacity and practical outcomes. From Summit Diplomacy to Sustained Architecture India’s BRICS presidency can ultimately be understood as a four-stage exercise: convening an enlarged grouping, securing consensus despite geopolitical contradictions, expanding cooperation into economic, technological and institutional domains, and handing over the harder task of implementation. The Delhi Summit did not erase differences among India, Russia and China, nor did it revive a formal RIC alignment. Its significance instead lies in demonstrating that major powers with divergent interests can continue to engage within a common multilateral architecture. For India, this reinforces the value of BRICS as a platform that does not require strategic uniformity. The New Delhi Declaration is also clear about the shortcomings of the existing international order, including unilateral sanctions, coercive measures, protectionism, tariffs and the inadequate representation of developing countries in global institutions. Yet it offers less clarity on how these structural problems can actually be addressed. This gap captures the larger challenge before BRICS. The Delhi Consensus is significant not because it eliminated internal differences, but because it created space for collective engagement despite them. India has built the platform; the credibility of the expanded BRICS will ultimately depend on whether its members can now convert diplomatic language into institutions, transactions and measurable outcomes. India may have succeeded in getting an increasingly complex BRICS around the same table and behind the same declaration, but the harder journey begins after the summit lights go out. A 140-point declaration is significant; translating it into functioning payment mechanisms, stronger trade and investment, technology partnerships, institutional reform and measurable economic outcomes will determine whether the Delhi Consensus becomes an enduring architecture or remains an impressive diplomatic document. That is perhaps the most important legacy of India’s BRICS presidency. New Delhi did not eliminate the differences between Russia, China, India or the bloc’s newer members; nor did it attempt to manufacture strategic uniformity. Instead, it demonstrated that disagreement need not make cooperation impossible. India built the bridge and created the diplomatic space. BRICS must now prove that it can walk across it. The real measure of the Delhi Consensus will not be what 11 nations agreed to say in New Delhi, but what they actually do after leaving it. (Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst and Life Member of United Services Institute of India and The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views in the article are solely the author’s. He can be contacted at editor.adu@gmail.com) https://www.aviation-defence-universe.com/brics-counters-western-isolation-of-russia-modi-xi-dialogue-marks-major-milestone/ BRICS Counters Western Isolation of Russia: Modi-Xi Dialogue Marks Major Milestone PM in a bilateral meeting with the President of the People’s Republic of China, Mr. Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the 16th BRICS Summit at Kazan, in Russia on October 23, 2024. By Jai Kumar Verma New Delhi. 29 October 2024. The news which caught global attention and universal eyeballs was the meeting between Modi and Xi at Kazan in Russia recently. And cupid was played by President Vladimir Putin, who had two good friends on each side and wanted them to come try and resolve their differences. A mediator whom neither could ignore nor suspect of vested interest. Russia’s old and strong ties with both India and China and it’s friend in need status, paved the way for this ice breaking. The President of Russian Federation, Mr. Vladimir Putin welcomes PM at the dinner hosted for BRICS leaders at Kazan, in Russia on October 22, 2024. Putin hosted the sixteenth annual BRICS summit (22–24 October 2024) in Kazan Russia. The theme of the summit was “Strengthening Multilateralism for Fair Global Development and Security.” Bilateral meetings between Presidents of Russia and China and Russia and South Africa were held. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held bilateral meetings with Russian President Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. BRICS meeting was important for Putin as Western block wanted to isolate Russia, but the meeting proved that U.S. and its allies miserably failed, and BRICS meeting was attended by representatives of 36 countries. Russia invited about 38 countries to attend the BRICS summit, there are reports that U.S. tried to pressurise and discourage these countries not to attend the summit. But the threat not worked well and except one or two countries others attended the summit. Several head of state including Prime Minister of India and President of China which are two most populous nations in the world attended the three-day summit. The Author From its inception as a five membered group of nations to an addition of new members like Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and United Arab Emirates, 13 nations have been added as partner countries of the BRICS. These countries included Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Besides these countries several other countries also showed their interest in joining BRICS, which seems to be a group of choice for quite a big and important part of the globe. Russians publicised, that summit was the largest foreign policy event ever held in Russia. However, the biggest highlight of the BRICS summit was the handshake between Modi and Xi after lapse of five years. It was the meeting of two nuclear armed neighbours, two population giants and two rising economies of the world. President Putin played a positive role in this historic meeting although there was no mention of Putin’s name behind this meeting but it is evident that Putin has been realising that the growing differences between China and India are slowly but steadily pushing Delhi towards the western camp and U.S. is trying to reap benefits of this animosity. U.S. is also pressurising India through Canada and by involving an Indian diplomat in attempt of assassination of a Khalistani terrorist. This was affecting India-Russia relations too, as Delhi was noticing increasing Russian dependence on China because of sanctions imposed by west on Russia. Annual bilateral trade between China and Russia is $240 billion while India Russia bilateral trade is merely $65 billion. The border agreement, withdrawal and disengagement of troops and bilateral meetings between Modi and Xi Jinping end the suspicion between themselves and it will be a win-win situation for all the three nations. National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Foreign Minister S Jayshankar met Chinese Foreign Minister and Polit Bureau member Wang Yi more than once and discussed the issues between India and China. In September Doval met Putin as well as Wang Yi in St. Petersburg in Russia. Modi during the bilateral meet with Xi, accentuated the need of settlement of border dispute so that peace is restored. It was decided that the Special Representatives of both the countries would meet to resolve the India-China boundary issue. After the bilateral talks it is expected that more Chinese investment would come to India. At present India blocked direct flights between India and China, put restrictions on issuing visas to Chinese nationals and augmented scrutiny of Chinese investments. PM in a bilateral meeting with the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, on the sidelines of the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia on October 22, 2024. After the agreement it is expected that both countries will try to normalise the relations, but here India has to be cautious as China is not trustworthy. It may be possible that as at present Chinese economy is not picking up, elders are criticising Xi Jinping, there are reports of internal disturbances in the country hence Xi Jinping agreed to withdraw the troops under pressure, but soon he may revert back. The statement of Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi about trust deficit and to have a cautious approach is timely. Same way the statement of India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman ahead of the bilateral meeting that India would place restrictions on foreign direct investment (FDI) is essential for the security of the country. China has declared that it would merge Taiwan in 2027 and the possibility that China may like to fix Taiwan first and because of it agreed for border agreement with India. Hence Taiwan for the first time did a night time military exercise. The drill shows that Taiwan is preparing for all eventualities. In nutshell though the present agreement with China is worth appreciating but India must remain prepared for any adverse action from China. In addition to the India-China focus on BRICS, Russia and China portrayed the group as a counterpoise to the Western-dominated global order. After start of Russia Ukraine war Kremlin intensified its efforts to invite countries of Global South to attend BRICS. Kremlin made vigorous efforts to introduce a substitute to SWIFT so that it can evade western sanctions and continue trade with other countries. Putin indicted U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar, he charged that as U.S. is not allowing Russia to use the dollar hence it has to search an alternative. However, India and Brazil have made it clear that BRICS is not anti-west, and they do not want to replace international institutions but they want to reform them. A payment system with the name of BRICS Pay was introduced which was an alternative to the Western interbank system SWIFT. In the Kazan Declaration need for reform of the United Nations and its Security Council was emphasised and the declaration mentioned that full participation should be given to the State of Palestine. The BRICS joint declaration stressed on the “disruptive effect of unlawful unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions, on the world economy, international trade, and the achievement of the sustainable development goals and reiterated that such measures undermine the UN Charter, the multilateral trading system, the sustainable development and environmental agreements. They also negatively impact economic growth, energy, health and food security exacerbating poverty and environmental challenges.” The joint declaration also mentioned that there are “widespread benefits of faster, low cost, more efficient, transparent, safe and inclusive cross-border payment instruments built upon the principle of minimizing trade barriers and non-discriminatory access. We welcome the use of local currencies in financial transactions between BRICS countries and their trading partners”. PM attends the Plenary Session of BRICS Summit at Kazan, in Russia on October 23, 2024. The “no-limit” cooperation between Putin and Xi was reaffirmed through bilateral meeting between them. Xi also claimed that China and Brazil forwarded a peace plan to end Russia Ukraine war, but the plan was rejected by Ukraine. Xi also stated that “We must uphold the three key principles: no expansion of the battlefields, no escalation of hostilities, and no fanning flames and strive for swift de-escalation of the situation.” India reaffirmed its close ties with Russia despite the latter’s dependence on China because of sanctions imposed by west and its effort to isolate Russia. West also tried that India condemn Russia but Delhi without condemning Moscow stressed the need of a peaceful settlement. Modi said that “We support dialogue and diplomacy, not war”. PM attends the Plenary Session of BRICS Summit at Kazan, in Russia on October 23, 2024. As India is suffering because of cross-border terrorism hence Modi also mentioned that “We all have to be united and cooperate strongly to deal with terrorism and terror financing. There is no place for double standards on such a serious issue. We should take active steps to prevent radicalization among the youth of our countries. We have to work together on the pending issue of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism in the UN”. Modi’s comments were also a hint to China as Beijing in past blocked the designation of Pakistan-based terrorist Sajid Mir as a global terrorist by UN Security Council. Modi also mentioned about the danger of cyber security and need to regulate the artificial intelligence (AI). Modi also stressed about the need of reforms in UN Security Council, multilateral development banks and World Trade Organisation (WTO). Russia and China are trying to project BRICS against the west, but Modi made it clear that BRICS is not trying to substitute the present global institutions, but it wants to reform the global institutions. Modi made it clear that “As we take our efforts forward in BRICS, we must be careful to ensure that this organisation does not acquire the image of one that is trying to replace global institutions, instead of being perceived as one that wishes to reform them”. Modi reaffirmed India’s commitment towards Global South. India also raised the voice of Global South at the time of its presidency of G-20. (Jai Kumar Verma is a Delhi-based strategic analyst and member of United Services Institute of India and The Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views in the article are solely the author’s. He can be contacted at editor.adu@gmail.com)