BRICS Success: India’s Gains Beyond the New Delhi Declaration

By Ashok Bhan

The success of India’s BRICS presidency should not be measured merely by the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration. Declarations are important diplomatic instruments, but their real value lies in what they enable beyond the conference hall. For India, the larger dividend of its BRICS leadership lies in diplomacy, security, bilateral engagement, economic opportunities, institutional reform and, importantly, in strengthening its voice in shaping the emerging international order.

India assumed the BRICS chair at a particularly turbulent moment. The international system is witnessing geopolitical rivalry, wars, protectionism, sanctions, fragmented supply chains, technological competition and growing dissatisfaction with the existing architecture of global governance. Against this backdrop, New Delhi had the difficult task of keeping an increasingly diverse BRICS together while ensuring that India’s own strategic and developmental interests remained firmly on the agenda.

The outcome, therefore, needs to be assessed on a wider canvas than the summit declaration.

Terrorism and Jammu & Kashmir: a significant diplomatic gain

One of the most important gains for India is the continuing effort to place terrorism firmly at the centre of the BRICS security agenda.

The condemnation of the 22 April 2025 Pahalgam terrorist attack in Jammu & Kashmir at the BRICS level was particularly significant. India had argued that condemnation of terrorism must be a matter of principle, not diplomatic convenience. The BRICS consensus gave political weight to that position.

For New Delhi, this is more than a symbolic statement. Cross-border terrorism affecting Jammu & Kashmir has long been one of India’s central security concerns. India has consistently maintained that terrorism cannot be compartmentalised according to political convenience and that there can be no distinction between “good” and “bad” terrorism.

The significance of raising the issue in BRICS is that India’s security concerns are thereby located within the larger international struggle against terrorism rather than treated merely as a bilateral India-Pakistan issue.

The next step must be practical. BRICS cooperation should produce stronger mechanisms against terrorist financing, recruitment, radicalisation, safe havens and terrorist networks. India should continue to press for international accountability of those who sponsor, facilitate or finance terrorism.

The Pahalgam reference thus represents an important diplomatic gain—but its real value will depend upon whether political condemnation evolves into sustained multilateral action.

The BRICS Power Troika: an institutional legacy

Perhaps the most consequential institutional idea associated with India’s presidency is the strengthening of the BRICS Troika—the previous, current and incoming presidencies.

BRICS has grown substantially in membership and ambition. Its agenda now covers political and security cooperation, trade, finance, technology, health, agriculture, climate, energy and people-to-people relations. Such expansion makes continuity increasingly important.

The annual change of chairmanship can otherwise produce discontinuity. An initiative launched by one presidency may lose momentum under the next. A stronger Troika can preserve institutional memory, coordinate priorities and ensure that important initiatives survive changes in leadership.

For India, the strategic advantage is obvious. New Delhi’s influence need not end when its chairmanship ends. It can continue to participate in the institutional steering process and help ensure that priorities launched under its presidency are carried forward.

The proposed use of a digital mechanism to track decisions, responsibilities and implementation can complement the Troika.

This could transform BRICS from a largely summit-driven grouping into a more continuous institution.

The Troika also has geopolitical significance. An expanded BRICS brings together countries with very different political systems, economic interests and foreign-policy orientations. India and China remain strategic competitors even as dialogue improves; Russia has a distinct relationship with China and the West; Iran and the Gulf countries have complex regional interests.

BRICS therefore requires managed diversity, not artificial uniformity.

India’s vision of the Troika can help preserve BRICS as a platform for a multipolar and inclusive world rather than allowing it to become an anti-Western bloc.

The real success of a presidency is not merely how effectively a country conducts its year in office, but how much of its vision survives after it leaves office. If the Troika becomes an effective continuity mechanism, India’s institutional legacy could extend well beyond 2026.

The China dividend: dialogue after estrangement

The BRICS platform has also provided India with valuable diplomatic space for high-level engagement with China.

The meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping is important not because it resolves the complex India-China relationship, but because sustained dialogue is indispensable to managing it.

India’s interests require peace and tranquillity along the border, greater economic balance, protection of national-security interests and continued diplomatic communication. China, meanwhile, remains an important economic and geopolitical power whose influence cannot be ignored.

BRICS gives both countries a multilateral setting in which engagement can take place without requiring either side to abandon its larger strategic position.

For India, the objective should be neither confrontation for its own sake nor premature normalisation. It should be competitive coexistence with safeguards, reciprocity and respect for India’s sovereignty and security interests.

Russia and strategic autonomy

The Russia dimension is equally important.

India’s relationship with Russia has historically rested on strategic trust, defence cooperation, energy, nuclear power and space. In the present geopolitical environment, however, the relationship requires diversification and modernisation.

BRICS provides India with an additional platform to broaden the relationship into trade, technology, energy, connectivity and industrial cooperation.

At the same time, India’s Russia policy reinforces the larger principle of strategic autonomy. New Delhi’s relationships with Russia and the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and other partners demonstrate that India does not view international relations through the prism of exclusive alliances.

That autonomy is becoming increasingly valuable in a fragmented world.

The Global South dividend

The most enduring political gain from India’s BRICS presidency may be the strengthening of its claim to leadership of the Global South.

India has repeatedly argued that emerging and developing economies deserve greater representation in institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, the IMF and the World Bank. BRICS provides an important coalition-building platform for that objective.

But India’s aspiration should go beyond rhetorical leadership.

It should seek practical partnerships in development finance, food and energy security, health, climate resilience, digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, agriculture and capacity-building.

India’s advantage is that it can speak simultaneously to the developed world and the developing world. It has relationships with Washington and Moscow, Brussels and Beijing, Tokyo and the Gulf, while retaining strong political and economic links across Africa, Latin America and Asia.

This gives New Delhi the possibility of becoming a bridge power in an increasingly divided international system.

From BRICS rhetoric to economic opportunity

Economic cooperation is another major area in which India can secure tangible gains.

During its chairmanship, India has promoted greater intra-BRICS trade, services, MSME access to finance, resilient supply chains and diversification of global value chains. The Jaipur Consensus and guiding principles for MSME credit are examples of efforts to move towards practical economic cooperation.

The discussion on greater use of national currencies and cross-border payment mechanisms is also important.

India should approach this issue pragmatically. BRICS need not create a common currency to reduce transaction costs or improve financial resilience. Interoperable payment systems, local-currency settlement and compatible financial infrastructure could themselves generate significant benefits.

India’s experience with digital public infrastructure gives it an opportunity to contribute technologically as well as politically.

Technology as the new instrument of influence

India’s digital transformation is another underappreciated BRICS asset.

Digital public infrastructure, fintech, artificial intelligence, digital health, agriculture technology and affordable technological solutions can become important instruments of India’s development diplomacy.

For many developing countries, the Indian model is attractive precisely because it seeks scale and affordability rather than dependence on expensive infrastructure.

If India succeeds in making its digital platforms, standards and institutional expertise useful to BRICS partners, it will gain not only commercial opportunities but also standards-setting power.

That is a subtler and potentially more durable form of geopolitical influence.

A multilateral summit that multiplies bilateral gains

One of the practical advantages of hosting BRICS is that a multilateral summit creates multiple bilateral opportunities.

India can use the BRICS network to deepen relations in trade, investment, energy, connectivity, education, technology, tourism and culture with member and partner countries.

The significance of these bilateral conversations should not be underestimated. In contemporary diplomacy, multilateral platforms often function as accelerators for bilateral negotiations.

A successful presidency therefore produces a multiplier effect: one multilateral platform generates many bilateral conversations and potential partnerships.

Legal and institutional diplomacy

India’s BRICS presidency has also expanded into less traditional areas of diplomacy, including judicial and legal cooperation.

The BRICS Justice Ministers’ engagement on mediation and arbitration, for example, has sought to strengthen capacity-building, institutional reform and cooperation in alternative dispute resolution.

For a rapidly expanding trading and investment relationship among BRICS countries, predictable and efficient dispute-resolution mechanisms can have considerable economic significance.

India’s legal institutions, universities and professional bodies can thereby become part of a broader network of Global South institutional cooperation.

The strategic message: India as a bridge, not a bloc

The larger strategic message of India’s BRICS presidency is perhaps best captured in three propositions:

India can convene without aligning; lead without dominating; and cooperate without surrendering strategic autonomy.

This is particularly important because BRICS itself is not homogeneous.

Its members have different political systems, economic models and strategic priorities. Its expansion gives it greater geographical weight but simultaneously makes consensus more difficult.

India’s success should therefore not be judged by whether BRICS becomes a counterweight to the West. That would be too narrow and ultimately contrary to India’s interests.

New Delhi’s greater objective should be a more representative, multipolar and inclusive international order, in which BRICS is one important pillar but not an instrument of confrontation.

The unfinished task

The real test begins after the summit.

India must ensure that its BRICS initiatives do not remain confined to declarations, seminars and working groups. The next phase must focus on implementation—greater trade and investment, interoperable payment systems, technology partnerships, resilient supply chains, energy cooperation, development finance and mobility of skilled professionals.

Similarly, the commitment to combating terrorism must translate into stronger cooperation against terrorist financing, radicalisation and transnational networks.

And the Troika must become more than a ceremonial arrangement. It should be empowered to monitor implementation, preserve institutional memory and carry forward the priorities of successive presidencies.

India should also continue using BRICS to build support for reform of the global governance architecture while maintaining constructive relations with the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and other partners.

Beyond the New Delhi Declaration

The New Delhi Declaration is therefore only one measure of India’s BRICS success.

The deeper gains lie in the diplomatic space India has created with China and Russia; the reaffirmation of its strategic autonomy; the strengthening of its Global South credentials; the internationalisation of its technological and developmental experience; the opportunity to expand trade and investment; the elevation of terrorism—including the Pahalgam attack in Jammu & Kashmir—within the BRICS security discourse; and the possibility of institutionalising continuity through the Power Troika.

India’s greatest BRICS dividend may ultimately be neither economic nor diplomatic in isolation. It is the gradual transformation of convening power into agenda-setting power.

In a fractured world, countries that can bring competing interests to the same table acquire influence disproportionate to their formal power.

India has demonstrated that capacity.

The challenge now is to convert it into enduring institutions, measurable outcomes and a sustained voice in shaping the international order.

The true success of India’s BRICS presidency will not be what was written in the Declaration at New Delhi, but what the world does with the ideas, partnerships and institutions that India leaves behind.

Author is a noted Senior Advocate in Supreme Court of India and a geo political analyst