The 18th BRICS Summit, held in New Delhi on 12–13 September, brings together 11 emerging markets and developing economies under India’s leadership — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Ethiopia. The summit underscores India’s growing global stature in an increasingly unbalanced multipolar world. New Delhi previously hosted the 13th BRICS Summit in 2021 and the 18th G20 Summit in 2023; this year’s gathering extends India’s diplomatic footprint and its ambition to shape global norms and give voice to the Global South. The summit is also notable for coinciding with India and China’s efforts to mend their strained ties.
Rotating around the three core pillars of BRICS — Political and Security Cooperation, Economic and Financial Partnership, and People-to-People Exchanges — this year’s summit theme, “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability,” builds on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2025 vision at the Rio Summit, where he called for a “multipolar and inclusive world order.”
Seeking Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability in the Emerging World Order: Making Sense of India’s BRICS Chairship
India’s pursuit of a multipolar and inclusive world order, amid a rapidly shifting international system, has anchored several major Indian-led diplomatic initiatives this decade. Tied to the Global South’s long-standing security concerns is its demand for “economic, social and institutional” resilience — only resilient systems and institutions, the thinking goes, can help the Global South navigate mounting global uncertainty. This decade alone has brought two ongoing wars and a pandemic that disrupted supply chains, energy security, and public health for the world’s most vulnerable populations, many of them in the Global South.
With this summit, India also hopes to narrow the gap between the Global North and South in access to emerging technologies. By placing Innovation at the centre of the agenda, India aims to expand the use of tools such as “digital public infrastructure, fintech, [and] AI”. India has emerged as a leader in some of these domains, particularly digital public infrastructure and fintech, which have transformed the lives of millions of Indians over the past decade. Building on this momentum, BRICS Ministers for Science, Technology and Innovation adopted a Joint Declaration in August — the “Chennai Consensus” — calling for deeper collaboration on emerging technologies.
A multipolar order demands multilateral cooperation. Through its BRICS chairship, India is working to strengthen “multilateral engagement among BRICS members” on economic, financial, and global-reform issues. But this partnership, India insists, must extend beyond government-to-government ties. True to the BRICS goal of deepening people-to-people partnerships, this year’s theme also foregrounds cultural exchange. BRICS culture ministers met in Bhopal on August 8 and adopted the Bhopal Declaration, which “focused on translating cultural dialogue into practical initiatives and strengthening institutional cooperation.” Through greater cultural connectivity, India hopes to foster “dialogue, creativity, mutual understanding and sustainable development among BRICS nations.”
The summit’s final theme speaks to India’s long-standing commitment, shared with the Global South, to environmental justice through a call for a sustainable future. This year’s agenda aims to accelerate “collective efforts towards climate action, green finance,” a transition to clean energy, and broader “sustainable development.”
India, Russia and China at the 18th BRICS Summit: Convergence and Divergence
The 18th summit gives India a fresh opportunity to raise its global profile, reflected in this year’s themes and the pre-summit ministerial declarations issued at Bhopal and Chennai, both of which included ministers from China and Russia. Likewise, BRICS trade and agriculture ministers issued joint declarations aimed at strengthening global trade and food security.
That doesn’t mean the bloc agrees on everything. New Delhi is pushing for a world order that is not Western-centric — though it insists this push is not anti-Western either. That distinction puts India somewhat at odds with Russia and China on contentious issues such as de-dollarisation. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov recently stressed the importance of moving away from the US dollar, noting that 90 percent of trade among BRICS states is now settled in national currencies. India has historically avoided such confrontational rhetoric, seeking instead to signal to the West that its vision of a fairer, more multipolar world order is not a repudiation of the West itself.
BRICS remains a bloc divided on core national-interest issues. Despite a recent thaw, India-China relations are still strained by border tensions and China’s military build-up in Asia. Similarly, the Iran-US conflict in West Asia has fuelled ongoing tension between Iran and the UAE, and between Iran and Saudi Arabia, over attacks on their territories and in the Strait of Hormuz that have battered both economies.
Future of BRICS
Despite critics questioning the bloc’s relevance amid these internal divergences, BRICS’s future looks far from doomed. The grouping has, in fact, expanded significantly in the last two years: the UAE, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia joined in 2024, followed by Indonesia in 2025. That growth in membership, and in the roster of partner countries, points to the bloc’s continuing relevance in a multilateral world order that increasingly demands multi-alignment. Its non-Western character also continues to draw in Global South states eager to see a less Western-centric global order take shape. Given this, India — a country with a long tradition of strategic autonomy and Global South leadership — is likely to remain committed to forums like BRICS as they continue to serve its interests.
