On September 12–13, 2026, India will take centre stage as host of the 18th BRICS Summit, bringing together an increasingly consequential gathering of the Global South. The small five-member group that India assisted in creating to discuss developing economies’ politics is no longer known as BRICS. It now has a considerably wider geographic reach, more economic and demographic clout, and a stronger claim to represent discontent with the current international order thanks to enlargement. However, growth has also introduced further paradoxes into a community that was never cohesive in the first place. The relevance of BRICS+ for India extends far beyond the results of the meeting in New Delhi. The true question is whether a larger BRICS makes it easier for India to influence a multipolar world or if it makes it more difficult for China, Russia, and an increasingly diversified group of states to do so.
The answer lies between these possibilities. BRICS+ gives India access to a larger Global South constituency, something the original BRICS were unable to provide. However, it also presents New Delhi with a far more challenging coalition management task. India needs to manage China without making BRICS China-centric, protect Russia without taking over Moscow’s conflict with the West, accommodate Iran’s interests without making BRICS an anti-Western platform, strengthen ties with the United Arab Emirates and other sensible middle powers, and involve new members without allowing the group to become hollowed out by constant expansion. The New Delhi summit is therefore important less as a destination than as the beginning of a larger test for Indian foreign policy: how to make BRICS+ serve India’s multipolar strategy without allowing BRICS+ to define that strategy.
India’s chairmanship comes at a moment of acute geopolitical turbulence, with the grouping’s newest members—Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—ensnared in a regional conflict that has dramatically unsettled the strategic landscape. Countries like Turkey, which has evinced an interest in joining the grouping, have further complicated the geopolitical calculus by recently signed a defence treaty with Saudi Arabia, a de facto member, and Pakistan. This emerging strategic alignment risks further fraying Ankara’s already fraught ties with Tehran, thereby introducing yet another geopolitical complication into the diplomatic matrix ahead of the forthcoming BRICS Summit. Many, once again, may be tempted to question the grouping’s continuing relevance should New Delhi fail to forge a joint communiqué, particularly in the face of deepening fissures among its members over the volatile developments in Iran and the increasingly consequential strategic theatre of the Strait of Hormuz. That certainly affects the group’s coherence on policy issues, by nature, this incoherency is archetypical of a nonbinding, informal group that works without a secretariat, and these divergences, splits, and differences reinforce the multipolarity of the international system.
BRICS+ can serve to amplify India’s preferred diplomatic lexicon: strategic autonomy, multipolarity, reformed multilateralism, sovereign equality, and more equitable representation for developing countries. Yet, an important distinction must be drawn here: India does not require BRICS to replace the international order. India’s bargaining power inside that order must be strengthened by BRICS. India’s argument for reforming the UN Security Council, IMF, World Bank, and other organizations whose structures fail to effectively reflect demographic and economic realities is strengthened by the expanded grouping. Additionally, it gives India a platform for its Global South diplomacy on issues like digital public infrastructure, resilient supply chains, food and energy security, technology access, climate justice, and development financing. Because India can form overlapping coalitions with additional members, additional Delhi should not merely see BRICS+ through the lens of China’s dominance.
The UAE, for instance, exemplifies a form of strategic pragmatism that sits far closer to India’s own preference for diversified partnerships than to the rigidities of bloc politics Indonesia, meanwhile, brings to the grouping another consequential Asian power with a pronounced commitment to strategic autonomy and diplomatic flexibility. Egypt, Ethiopia, and other participants contribute their own distinct regional priorities and geopolitical calculations. Paradoxically, therefore, the more expansive BRICS becomes, the more difficult it may be for either Beijing or Moscow to imprint upon the grouping a single, unifying geopolitical identity. Therefore, India has the chance to change BRICS+ from rival blocs to a coalition of several autonomies. Because these improve economic sovereignty, India can promote increased use of national currencies, payment interoperability, and financial diversification. However, it is not required to adopt de-dollarization as an ideological endeavour. Without viewing the G7 as an enemy, it can promote a more powerful Global South. It can deepen ties with Washington, Brussels, and Tokyo while keeping its alliance with Russia.
Although the new members complicate this balancing act, they also provide India political chances as allies. Iran will inevitably support a more robust challenge to the political and economic hegemony of the West. The UAE is more likely to favour adaptable economic diversification while maintaining close links to the West. Indonesia has a long history of strategic autonomy and non-alignment. Ethiopia and Egypt join BRICS with their respective regional strategies and levels of development. It’s possible that the most India-friendly BRICS+ is one in which there is no universally accepted geopolitical meaning of BRICS. Diversity, which is typically seen as a BRICS+ weakness, could serve as India’s strategic defence against any one member’s dominance.
The length of the Delhi Declaration, the number of initiatives launched at the summit, or another round of growth should not be used to gauge India’s performance. The ability of India to start moving BRICS from enlargement to consolidation should serve as a gage. India does not necessarily require the BRICS to keep growing. Enlargement already has enough geopolitical clout. Coherence is what the grouping is lacking. Without specific criteria, further enlargement might turn BRICS into an amorphous Global South assembly that is big enough to draw attention from around the world but too cumbersome to make important decisions. Therefore, rather than presuming that every interested state should eventually become a full member, India has an interest in maintaining a distinction between full members, partner countries, and outreach mechanisms. It is evident that India views BRICS as a significant mini-lateral vehicle that symbolizes and expedites the realization of multipolarity. However, the realization of multipolarity will remain restricted until and unless there is uniformity within the group in the form of shared policy positions and harmonization on security problems.
However, India showed in many respects that responsible division management, rather than exaggerating it, is the key to effective leadership in the modern world system. India strengthened its reputation as a stabilizing factor and a responsible voice of the Global South by maintaining communication, maintaining institutional momentum, and concentrating emphasis on common developmental priorities in the face of geopolitical unrest. New Delhi aimed to change the group’s emphasis from reactive geopolitics to positive agenda-setting focused on institutional reform, development, resilience, and technical collaboration. India’s long-standing claim that current international institutions no longer accurately reflect modern power realities was strengthened by its quest for more participation of Asia, Africa, and Latin America in global governance frameworks.
The tensions witnessed in New Delhi are unlikely to go away as BRICS prepares for the Leaders’ Summit in September 2026. However, rather than completely plunging into geopolitical disintegration, India’s presidency has at least made sure that the group stays rooted in constructive interaction. At this crucial point, that might end up being New Delhi’s most substantial contribution to BRICS.
