BRICS For A New Order

By Shivaji Sarkar

India’s 2026 BRICS Chairship comes at a time of profound global change. The international order is facing economic fragmentation, rapid technological disruption and growing geopolitical uncertainty, while climate change and resource pressures add new strains. These interconnected challenges call for cooperation that is inclusive, practical and sensitive to the differing circumstances of member countries.

BRICS offers an important platform for dialogue and collective action. Its expanded membership brings together diverse perspectives and the weight of major emerging economies. The grouping can deepen cooperation in development, climate action, technology, energy and financial resilience, while contributing to the debate on reforming global institutions.

For India, however, the challenge is not simply to expand BRICS or increase its visibility. It is to turn broader representation into meaningful cooperation and tangible results. India’s Chairship can help build consensus among diverse members, strengthen existing mechanisms and make BRICS a more effective and constructive force for a fairer and more inclusive global order.

Simultaneously, India is balancing its ties with the US and Israel, even as Russia-Iran oppose, China cautious, UAE vocally against the Gulf and Saudi careful. The wedge within the BRICS is widening. All the same they are together as new economic bloc emerges. In many cases now, the countries are there for an alternative. The group, however, is not emerging as the substitute for others, least of all the US-led trade alliances despite circumspections.

The BRICS comprises 11 full member states - Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates and 10 designated partner countries - Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. The Philippines has also come to attend the meeting. The bloc represents 3.3 billion or haff the global population, with a total GDP of 40 percent. Europe is wary of it as a Russia-centric or anti-Ukraine bloc, almost the same as the US, despite reservations of EU on many matters with the US.

Russia and Iran hit out at US “aggression” and pose a challenge for the summit host, India. It’s a new paradigm of trying to show India as a “victim”. New Delhi has its own logic of a policy of equidistance with its BRICS friends. Many mini-tug-of-wars within the groups are not unknown.

Various members have reservations about the dominance of China and its Yuan, as also the growing influence of the Saudi Rial. The group that was vocal about de-dollarisation in 2021 has quietly shifted to a new approach of regional mutually tradable currencies, a vocal supporter being Iran, so that the US could be size up. Russia despite wanting rouble dominance is aware of its shortfalls. It is willing to accept a tradable strong currency.

$ Reshapes Globe

India campaigned for rupee-trading. Most countries, including Russia, have reservations on the rupee. The Reserve Bank of India spent $ 12 billion on stabilising it but it continues to slide. The central bank a few years back used gold to settle forex payments. Initially, it worked as gold cost less than the dollar. Several central banks started purchasing gold but it’s no more affordable for most countries.

The substitute appears to be the dollar again. Sizeable transactions of the bloc continue in the dollar. It still drives roughly 80 percent of global trade settlements and over 89 percent of foreign exchange transactions worldwide.

The total intra-BRICS merchandise trade reached $1.17 trillion in 2024, but individual members such as India still maintain massive trade deficits, (e.g. India’s $226 billion deficit with the bloc) and continue relying on dollar liquidity or major third-party currencies like the yuan for external trade buffers.

BRICS was created to challenge the Western-dominated global order, not necessarily to replace it. It emerged after the 2008 financial crisis and the failure of the WTO’s Doha trade talks, as emerging economies sought a stronger collective voice and greater influence in global institutions.

BRICS itself is awaiting to emerge as alternative for finance and cooperation without the West. The old idea of a united “West” is weakening, with growing strains between the US and Europe. BRICS today is less about confronting the West and more about reshaping global governance and giving the Global South greater room to act.

The Subcontinent

Fissures withing the subcontinent are appearing. Bangladesh preferred to keep off the BRICS Summit. It indicates it felt slighted on its domestic score as well as feels uncomfortable in sharing the platform with India, for its alleged tilt towards its former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. The present Prime Minister Tariq Rahman is maintaining a distance.

Meanwhile, other SAARC members find themselves on the opposite side of the spectrum. Countries like Pakistan and Sri Lanka are actively waiting in queue and seeking entry into the bloc, though BRICS’s rigid consensus-based admission rules have kept their full membership on hold. Perhaps, it’s an opportunity for India to revive the subcontinental alliance SAARC. Differences among neighbours is a global reality. A revived SAARC itself could become a strong forum in the region particularly as Iran and Afghanistan also see merit in a regional alliance.

India’s reservation about Pakistan is historical. Maybe it has to change as Pakistan diplomatically becomes important with its closeness with the US as also the Gulf countries and Turkiye and the recent security alliance.

The Houthi attack on Baab al Mandeb in the Red Sea has caused concern for India and Saudis as the trade route is hit. India-Iran talk about Chabahar again. But pearls of the ports in SAARC could have helped the subcontinent to restrategise the regional fences. Maybe it would happen despite reservations in the Indian subcontinent.

Opportunities

New Delhi on the sidelines of BRICS launches a massive diplomatic exercise. It is in parleys with China, Russia and even some smaller countries like Vietnam for technology and defence hardware acquisition. India is likely to have many agreements with countries like Egypt to The Philippines. Each pie is expected to add to a futuristic leap. It is presenting 37 deep-tech ventures.

Russia is offering SU-57, Super Sukhois and S-500 along with certain technology transfers that Rafael did not do. Xi is on a massive bid to solve the border tangle. And dialogue on Tibetan Himalayas may begin for the climate safety.

Despite 50-odd outcomes, the group is confabulating on a range for relaunching a global economic cooperation and strengthening the New Development Bank for funding developments. — INFA