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New Delhi is poised to become the diplomatic center of gravity of the Global South on September 12 and 13 as India hosts the 18th BRICS Summit at Bharat Mandapam, bringing together the leaders of an expanded grouping at a moment when geopolitical rivalries, trade wars, armed conflicts and uncertainty over the future of the global economic order are redrawing the map of international relations.
For Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian government, however, BRICS 2026 is about far more than the ceremonial culmination of a year-long presidency. It is a test of whether India’s carefully calibrated foreign-policy propositions – strategic autonomy, a stronger voice for the Global South and practical multilateralism – can be converted into tangible diplomatic, economic and technological gains. India assumed the BRICS chairmanship on January 1 for the fourth time, following its presidencies in 2012, 2016 and 2021.
The timing is symbolically significant: the summit comes two decades after BRICS emerged as a platform for major emerging economies. But the organization that arrives in New Delhi in 2026 bears little resemblance to the original Brazil-Russia-India-China grouping. South Africa joined in 2010, while Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia subsequently widened the bloc’s geographical and economic reach. With 11 full members and a broader circle of partner countries, BRICS now spans Asia, Africa, the Gulf, Latin America and Eurasia. Its enlarged footprint has increased its economic and political weight – but has also made consensus considerably harder. India’s response to that complexity has been to put “Humanity First” at the heart of its presidency, under the overarching theme of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”.
The formulation reflects New Delhi’s attempt to prevent BRICS from being reduced to a geopolitical counterweight to the West and instead position it as a platform capable of delivering practical solutions to the developmental challenges confronting emerging economies. The distinction is central to India’s BRICS diplomacy. Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar have repeatedly advocated a more representative and inclusive international order in which developing countries have a greater say in institutions that continue to reflect the power equations of an earlier era. For India, that means pushing for reform of the United Nations and international financial institutions, strengthening development finance, widening access to technology and healthcare, improving food and energy security and giving the Global South a greater role in shaping the rules of the global economy. India’s approach is also deliberately different from the more confrontational interpretation of BRICS advanced by some of its members.
New Delhi has little interest in turning the grouping into an explicitly anti-Western alliance or a substitute for the existing international system. It maintains deepening strategic and economic partnerships with the United States and Europe while simultaneously strengthening relations with Russia, China, the Gulf and the wider developing world. For India, therefore, strategic autonomy is less about choosing one camp than preserving the freedom to engage multiple centers of power in pursuit of its national interests.
The arrival of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in New Delhi will give that balancing act its most visible expression. Modi is scheduled to hold full-format bilateral talks with Putin on September 11, with trade, defense and energy expected to figure prominently. Modi and Xi are scheduled to meet on September 12 on the sidelines of the summit, making their interaction particularly significant against the backdrop of continuing strategic competition between India and China. India is also seeking to maintain engagement with Iran. Modi is scheduled to meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on September 11, adding another dimension to New Delhi’s diplomacy in a region where India’s interests encompass energy security, connectivity and strategic access.
The juxtaposition of these meetings captures the essence of India’s BRICS diplomacy: engage partners, competitors and adversaries simultaneously, without allowing membership of one grouping to dictate the entirety of India’s external relationships. But if the diplomatic theatre will be closely watched, the economic outcomes could ultimately determine how India’s presidency is judged. BRICS economies account for around 26 per cent of global trade, according to estimates cited by the Federation of Indian Export Organizations. For India, the potential spans engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, textiles, automobiles and components, electronics, food and agriculture, renewable energy, healthcare and digital services.
FIEO President S C Ralhan has argued that BRICS must “move beyond strategic dialogue to measurable commercial outcomes”, with greater emphasis on market access, investment, technology partnerships, resilient supply chains and efficient payment mechanisms. That demand fits neatly into India’s larger ambition to emerge as a major manufacturing and sourcing hub as geopolitical tensions force global companies to diversify production and reduce excessive dependence on concentrated supply chains.
For New Delhi, BRICS can become a platform linking India’s manufacturing capabilities, skilled workforce and digital infrastructure with the capital, resources, technology and markets of fellow emerging economies. “Trade and investment must move together,” Ralhan has argued, advocating co-production, joint ventures and technology transfer rather than a relationship restricted to conventional exports. For Indian manufacturers, exporters and MSMEs, such an approach could prove more valuable than another broad political declaration. Faster customs procedures, fewer non-tariff barriers, regulatory transparency, mutual recognition of standards, digital trade documentation and predictable payment systems could create a more durable economic relationship among BRICS countries.
Payments are consequently emerging as one of the most practical areas of potential cooperation. India enters the debate with considerable diplomatic capital from its experience with digital public infrastructure, particularly the Unified Payments Interface. New Delhi is expected to encourage cooperation on digital payments, fintech, central bank digital currencies and alternative payment mechanisms. For businesses, the issue is not simply about challenging the dominance of the US dollar. It is about reducing transaction costs, payment risks and uncertainty.
“Payment uncertainty can itself become a trade barrier,” Ralhan has said, making the case for transparent and efficient payment arrangements that could encourage smaller businesses to enter BRICS markets. The question of local currencies, however, remains politically and economically sensitive. BRICS members operate under vastly different monetary systems and have varying degrees of exposure to Western financial markets. India is therefore more likely to favor greater use of national currencies and payment interoperability where commercially viable than support a premature common BRICS currency.
The New Development Bank provides another avenue for turning declarations into delivery. India is pushing for progress reports on the BRICS Multilateral Guarantees pilot, an initiative intended to mobilize private investment across member economies without requiring additional capital contributions. If implemented effectively, such mechanisms could help finance infrastructure and sustainable development while lowering risk for private investors. Energy security will form another crucial pillar of India’s BRICS agenda. India is simultaneously pursuing an ambitious renewable-energy transition and seeking dependable and affordable energy to sustain rapid economic growth.
Cooperation on energy technology, critical minerals, smart grids, storage and diversified supply chains therefore has a direct bearing on India’s development strategy. A BRICS Digital Centre of Excellence for Smart Grids and Energy Storage launched by India, along with discussions at the BRICS Energy Ministers’ meeting in Gurugram in June, underlines New Delhi’s attempt to move the energy agenda beyond political declarations towards practical cooperation. Technology offers an equally significant opportunity.
Digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cross-border payments, data governance, cybersecurity and emerging technologies are areas in which countries with sharply different political systems can nevertheless find common ground. India’s experience with large-scale digital public infrastructure gives New Delhi an opportunity to project its technological capabilities internationally while building partnerships in markets where demand for affordable digital solutions is expanding rapidly. Agriculture, food security, global health infrastructure, disaster-risk reduction and supply-chain resilience form the other side of India’s “Humanity First” approach. These are issues that allow New Delhi to connect BRICS diplomacy directly to the everyday concerns of developing societies rather than allowing the grouping to become consumed by great-power rivalry.
India has sought to reinforce that developmental character through a year-long programme involving more than 350 meetings and high-level engagements across more than 25 Indian cities, covering security, trade, finance, technology, energy and cultural cooperation. Yet the New Delhi summit will confront the fundamental contradiction at the heart of an expanded BRICS: the grouping has become more influential precisely as it has become more difficult to manage. Its members do not share a common foreign-policy outlook. Russia and Iran have deeply adversarial relationships with the West, while India maintains expanding strategic and economic partnerships with Washington and European capitals.
China and India remain strategic competitors even as both recognize the value of keeping BRICS relevant. The Gulf members have their own calculations, while Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and other members bring distinctive economic and diplomatic priorities. The divisions were starkly exposed at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi in May, when disagreements linked to Iran and the UAE prevented the adoption of a joint communique. India instead issued a chair’s statement acknowledging the differences. For New Delhi, that episode offered a useful lesson ahead of the leaders’ summit: India cannot eliminate strategic rivalries from BRICS, but it can attempt to prevent those rivalries from paralyzing the organization. That will be particularly important because India’s own interests require productive relationships with countries that may find themselves on opposite sides of regional disputes.
The success of the summit may therefore depend less on producing the strongest possible rhetoric than on identifying areas where consensus can survive geopolitical disagreement. Supply chains, critical minerals, food security, energy, digital payments, healthcare, disaster resilience, development finance and technology are precisely the areas where practical cooperation can advance even when members disagree on larger strategic questions. Business groups are pressing for such an outcome.
FIEO has called for stronger business-to-business engagement through buyer-seller meetings, investment matchmaking, technology partnerships, joint ventures and regular business delegations. “The real test of BRICS will be whether its benefits reach manufacturers, exporters, startups and MSMEs,” Ralhan has said. “Political goodwill has to travel from summit tables to shop floors.” That could prove the most revealing measure of India’s presidency.
If the New Delhi summit produces mechanisms that make trade easier, investment more predictable, payments more efficient, supply chains more resilient and technology partnerships more accessible, India will have demonstrated that its version of strategic autonomy can generate tangible economic value. If it produces little beyond another declaration of solidarity, the enormous diplomatic spectacle could struggle to match the expectations generated by India’s ambitious presidency.
The summit will also serve as a demonstration of India’s growing capacity to host complex international gatherings. Bharat Mandapam, which hosted the 2023 G20 Leaders’ Summit, will once again become the focal point of global diplomacy. The capital has been placed under an extensive security and traffic-management regime, with more than 15,000 police personnel and 200 paramilitary companies deployed at strategic locations, around 500 additional CCTV cameras installed in the New Delhi district, and extensive traffic restrictions and diversions introduced around key routes and diplomatic locations. Government offices and schools in Delhi have been closed on September 11 as part of the security preparations, while essential services, banks, transit hubs and the Delhi Metro continue to operate.
The logistical exercise is more than a backdrop to the summit. It is part of India’s wider effort to present itself as a capable host of major multilateral diplomacy and as a country increasingly prepared to shape, rather than merely participate in, international rule-making. Two years after the G20 summit placed New Delhi at the center of global diplomacy, BRICS offers India another platform to articulate its vision of a multipolar world. But the stakes are different. The G20 brought together advanced and emerging economies within a broad framework. BRICS is a more politically charged grouping, with its members seeking greater representation for the developing world while disagreeing sharply over what the next international order should look like. India’s challenge is to occupy the space between those competing visions.
New Delhi does not seek to preserve the Western-led order unchanged. Nor does it appear interested in transforming BRICS into a geopolitical bloc defined primarily by opposition to the West. Its proposition is more nuanced: reform global institutions, democratize international decision-making, strengthen the Global South, expand economic cooperation and preserve the strategic freedom of individual countries. It is a difficult balancing act, but it is also where India’s particular diplomatic value lies. The presence of Putin and Xi in New Delhi, alongside leaders from Africa, the Gulf, Asia and Latin America, will give Modi an unusually broad diplomatic stage. The bilateral conversations surrounding the summit could prove as consequential for India’s interests as the formal BRICS agenda itself, particularly on energy, defense, trade, connectivity and regional security.
The larger question, however, extends beyond the two days at Bharat Mandapam. Twenty years after BRICS first emerged and at a time when the grouping has expanded dramatically, India is attempting to demonstrate that a diverse coalition of emerging powers can remain useful without becoming ideologically uniform; that the Global South can demand a greater voice without turning multilateralism into confrontation; and that strategic autonomy can be converted into economic opportunity.
For India, therefore, BRICS 2026 is not simply a summit to be hosted. It is a test of statecraft. The measure of New Delhi’s success will not ultimately be the grandeur of Bharat Mandapam, the number of leaders in the summit photograph or even the strength of the final declaration. It will be whether India’s year at the helm leaves behind stronger trade and investment links, more resilient supply chains, deeper technology cooperation, greater development finance and a more credible voice for the Global South. In that sense, the real BRICS summit may begin only after the leaders leave New Delhi. (UNI)
