{"id":6181,"date":"2026-09-11T13:49:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T13:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/?p=6181"},"modified":"2026-09-11T13:49:39","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T13:49:39","slug":"setting-the-agenda-indias-leadership-at-the-18th-brics-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/?p=6181","title":{"rendered":"Setting the Agenda: India\u2019s Leadership at the 18th BRICS Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Asad Mirza<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Xi and Putin land in Delhi for BRICS 2026, India juggles a China thaw, a Russia bear-hug, an Egypt embrace, a Congress civil war over \u201ctangible benefits\u201d, and a Middle East on fire – all under one roof at Bharat Mandapam.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Delhi is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit at a combustible moment – Xi Jinping\u2019s first India visit in seven years, Putin\u2019s fresh arrival, a Congress spat over BRICS\u2019s worth, and an unresolved Iran war threatening the joint declaration PM Modi desperately wants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After chairing the grouping three times before, India is hosting its fourth BRICS presidency at a moment when the bloc looks less like a coherent alliance and more like an unwieldy coalition of convenience. The 18th summit, running September 12-13 under the theme \u201cBuilding for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability\u201d, brings together 11 full members – Brazil, Russia, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, Indonesia and India – representing roughly 41% of global GDP in PPP terms. For PM Modi, hosting it is both a prestige project and a diplomatic tightrope, with India having run over 350 meetings across 25-plus cities this year to keep the chairship substantive rather than ceremonial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress turns BRICS into a domestic slugfest<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before the leaders landed, India\u2019s opposition supplied its own subplot. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram publicly questioned what India has actually extracted from BRICS, saying he didn\u2019t believe the last two or three summits had delivered \u201ctangible benefits or tangible results\u201d, and extended the same scepticism to the SCO, G20 and Quad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, his party colleague Shashi Tharoor pushed back within a day, calling India\u2019s hosting, a demonstration of \u201cdiplomatic convening power\u201d and framing BRICS as an indispensable platform for the Global South\u2019s 100-plus nations, even while conceding the bloc\u2019s internal divisions and India\u2019s trade imbalance with fellow members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BJP seized on the split \u2013 \u201cCongress exposes Congress\u201d – but the underlying question Chidambaram raised is one serious commentators share: does BRICS produce outcomes, or mostly photographs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De-dollarisation: loud rhetoric, quiet retreat<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea of a BRICS currency to rival the dollar has effectively died on the vine, largely because Washington threatened tariffs of up to 100% on members seen as building a rival reserve currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India has been the most consistent voice of caution, insisting it never supported a common currency and prefers narrower, practical fixes – cross-border payment interoperability, and a proposal to link central bank digital currencies, including India’s digital rupee and China\u2019s digital yuan, without touching sovereign monetary policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers underline the gap between rhetoric and reality: close to 95% of India-Russia trade now settles in rupees and rubles, a bilateral shift achieved quietly, while the dollar\u2019s share of global reserves has barely moved from around 58%. De-dollarisation at BRICS in 2026 is less a currency revolution than a payments-plumbing exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xi\u2019s 24-hour olive branch<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The marquee moment is Xi Jinping\u2019s bilateral with PM Modi – his first visit to India since 2019, and the first since the deadly 2020 Galwan clash froze relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two sides have spent efforts since 2024 cautiously rebuilding ties: an LAC patrolling agreement, resumed direct flights, restarted tourist visas and more frequent ministerial contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the substance gap remains stark – bilateral trade hit a record $151.1 billion, yet India\u2019s trade deficit with China has also swelled to a record $112 billion, driven by dependence on Chinese inputs across electronics, solar and pharma supply chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Border stability, de-escalation along the LAC and market access for Indian exports top PM Modi\u2019s list; Xi will be pushing India to ease investment restrictions and technology curbs imposed since 2020. Analysts frame this less as reconciliation than as tactical thaw – both sides using BRICS as cover for a \u201csubstantive\u201d conversation neither wants to have unattended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin brings defence, energy and rare earths<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A day ahead of the summit proper, Putin held his own dedicated sit-down with PM Modi – their second meeting in under two weeks after the SCO summit in Bishkek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agenda was heavily defence-and-resource focused: the pending delivery of S-400 air defence systems, a possible Su-57 stealth fighter sale, upgrades to the jointly-built BrahMos missile programme, new nuclear power plant negotiations, and – notably – early-stage cooperation on rare earths and critical minerals, an area where India is seeking to diversify away from Chinese dominance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commerce minister Piyush Goyal has separately flagged a bilateral investment treaty and a shared target of pushing trade to $100 billion by 2030, up from roughly $68 billion in 2024-25. For India, Russia remains the reliable hedge – a partner it can extract hard security and energy assets from, without the strategic baggage that comes with Washington or Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egypt: the bridge India wants to build<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the newer members, Egypt has emerged as a quiet Indian priority. Cairo formally joined BRICS in January 2024, and India has worked deliberately to deepen the relationship – elevating it to a Strategic Partnership in 2023, hosting over 15 ministerial exchanges in two years, and convening a dedicated \u201cIndia-Egypt Partnership in BRICS\u201d conference in Cairo just weeks before the summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bilateral trade rose roughly 35% to $6.8 billion in 2025-26, and Indian investments in Egypt now exceed $5.5 billion, supporting around 50,000 local jobs. India’s calculation is geographic and geopolitical: Egypt is a bridge connecting Africa, the Arab world and Asia, and a moderating voice within BRICS’s fractious West Asia bloc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside Indonesia \u2013 BRICS\u2019s newest big-population member and a fellow non-aligned-tradition democracy – Egypt gives India ballast against being squeezed between the China-Russia axis and the Iran-UAE-Saudi fault lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Iran war shadow over the joint declaration<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summit\u2019s hardest problem has nothing to do with trade. The US-Israel war on Iran fractured BRICS\u2019s foreign ministers\u2019 meeting back in May, when the bloc could only issue a chair’s statement acknowledging \u201cdiffering views\u201d rather than a joint communiqu\u00e9 – Iran demanding condemnation of US-Israeli strikes, the UAE (itself hit by Iranian missiles and having suspended trade with Tehran in August) resisting language that implicated Gulf states which had opened bases to American jets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India, Russia, Brazil and Egypt have reportedly worked through September to narrow the gap between Iran and the UAE ahead of the leaders’ summit, drawing on the more successful Bishkek Declaration at the SCO, which India, Russia and China all signed onto with pointed language against strikes on Iranian territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether Delhi can replicate that formula at BRICS – a bloc that, unlike the SCO, includes the UAE – remains genuinely uncertain. A joint declaration mentioning West Asia is possible; a BRICS-brokered end to the war itself is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bloc lacks the institutional machinery, military weight or unified position to mediate an active conflict – at best it can offer a face-saving diplomatic formulation that lets all sides claim their principles were reflected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chairship ledger: gains and gaps<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

India\u2019s year at the helm delivered visible wins – sustained multilateral convening power, incremental progress on the New Development Bank and the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy 2030, and high-profile bilaterals with Xi and Putin that Delhi could not easily have arranged otherwise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the losses are real too: no breakthrough on India\u2019s core asks (market access from China, a firm S-400\/Su-57 timeline from Russia), a bloc more fractured on geopolitics than when India took over, and a domestic opposition openly questioning the exercise\u2019s payoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BRICS 2026 will likely be remembered less for a single grand outcome than for what it reveals – a multipolar grouping increasingly defined by what its members cannot agree on, held together, for now, by India’s careful diplomatic stitching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Asad Mirza As Xi and Putin land in Delhi for BRICS 2026, India juggles a China thaw, a Russia bear-hug, an Egypt embrace, a Congress civil war over \u201ctangible benefits\u201d, and a Middle East on fire – all under one roof at Bharat Mandapam. New Delhi is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit at a combustible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232,195,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-august-2026","category-international-affairs","category-latest-articles-in-english-all"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":1,"today_views":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6181"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6182,"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6181\/revisions\/6182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asadmirza.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}