The BRICS summit India just hosted drew key leaders from Russia, China, South Africa, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Indonesia and other countries. The big absence was the ‘B’ of BRICS — Brazil and its President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has been one of the founding members and had never missed a single BRICS meeting.
The current global order and various international platforms have leaders weighing their options everywhere. Nobody wants to antagonise the big powers, and hence they become part of all such platforms. BRICS was a platform meant to bring big countries like Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa together and explore commonalities for cooperation. The BRICS Delhi Declaration is a welcome step. Despite Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE being in the group, it would have been difficult to take a unified stand on the war. Yet many points in the declaration deserve appreciation, including its reference to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and support for a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.
While BRICS is a growing family and is not speaking about de-dollarisation, slowly the process of trading in their own currencies is gaining ground. The process was actually started by Russia, not as a threat to the dollar being the reserve currency of the new world order that emerged after World War II, but because it was pushed to do so after thousands of sanctions were imposed on it due to its war with Ukraine. Iran has also had to face similar pressures, along with North Korea, because they do not fit into the Western ‘democratic’ system.
BRICS Is Growing Because the World Is Moving Towards Multipolarity
BRICS is growing because old colonial manipulations continue unabated, while the natives of those regions are now seeking accountability and total sovereignty over their resources, much to the discomfort of Brussels, London and Washington DC. Hence, there is growing unease in the Western world.
Initially, they mocked Russia and Vladimir Putin, terming him a ‘dictator’, ‘Hitler’ and a villain of peace. They failed to isolate Russia, and hence different methods have been adopted by the ‘deep-state’ actors, including the ‘experts’, ‘liberal commentators’, ‘economists’ and ‘democrats’ patronised by them.
The target during this BRICS summit was not Russia, but China, and the reason is the Western ‘realisation’ that despite all the odds, it would be difficult for them to break India-Russia ties. Hence, the focus shifted to China, once patronised by the West itself during the post-1990s ‘liberalisation’ period, to isolate Russia further.
I am saying it again: Europe is suffering from Russophobia and does not even consider China a threat, unlike the US, which feels China is the real economic threat to it. The sad part is that Indian cheerleaders of ‘strong’ India-West ties suggest that BRICS is only helping China.
All countries are making alliances according to their national interests, and numerous regional alliances have been formed. India once upon a time played a leading role in the development of SAARC but today is responsible for the death of SAARC, which could have provided India with much greater economic leverage. The current regime actually wanted to become more associated with the West and not really with the Global South.
Many of these liberal elites in India might be critical of Narendra Modi and the BJP for their own reasons, but the fact of the matter is that a majority of them are simply the ‘cheerleaders’ of Western capitalist, ‘democratic’ and ‘liberal’ values.
Nobody suggests that an event cannot be criticised, but the way numerous newspapers and media houses came out with and published those gutter-level articles clearly indicates that this American-sponsored lobby in India has deep penetration in the Indian Jain-Marwari-owned Brahmanical media.
The issue is not about who is gaining from it, but about the history of India’s struggle against colonialism and its attempt to create an independent foreign policy for itself. India will gain if it develops good relations and is not seen as a Trojan horse, a term used by a senior Brazilian official several years ago.
Indian liberal media acted absurdly, including a professor from JNU writing that India must ensure BRICS becomes redundant and others suggesting that India must make it look boring. How is it that, amidst hosting an international event, which India became the host of as part of a rotational process, we are being told to work towards weakening it when we have been one of its founding nations?
India was also a leading founder of the Non-Aligned Movement. There is nothing wrong with countries deciding to chart a different path. Being part of a platform and seeking economic associations is not wrong, and it should be welcome.
Why India Must Protect Its Independent Foreign Policy
India’s Western alliance is stronger, but it has never really bothered about associating with the East, where it would have carried greater weight and huge cultural capital in the form of Buddhism.
Western economic systems are suited to benefiting them by exploiting resources, both natural and human, from the Global South. They built their narrative accordingly. Being a part of BRICS does not mean India should get out of other international platforms. India is very much part of them, but the deep-state cheerleaders can explain what exactly the outcome has been of various ‘deals’ between the US, UK and EU that have been signed with India in recent years.
How much employment will these deals generate in India, and how will our domestic industries and farmers benefit from these agreements? Most of these deals are actually detrimental to our farmers. The West is looking at India as a dumping ground and a market for its produce. These deals are often tilted heavily towards Western economies.
The West will glorify India as long as it is not a challenge to them. Donald Trump already wants Indians out of the United States and is harping on his own nationalism. His agenda is expanding US boundaries to Greenland and now Ireland too. The whisper has already started in the air after Donald Trump visited Ireland and began seeking unification.
The UK faces a bigger challenge, as the USA is already not comfortable supporting its ‘ownership’ of the Falkland Islands.
The growth of right-wing nationalist forces in Europe and America is the failure of those who call themselves ‘liberal’ yet allowed the massacre of innocent Palestinians to happen in Gaza. There are other basic issues which the citizens of those countries understand better than us, such as what they need, but it is a fact that Russian energy supplied to the West was much cheaper and more reliable, while now they depend on American energy sources and pay much higher prices.
BRICS, China and the Western Anxiety Over a Changing World Order
The cheerleaders would not even acknowledge the brutality of the regime. The kidnapping of an elected President in Venezuela and the threats now being issued to others in Bolivia, Cuba and Colombia do not seem to impact those who constantly speak about the ‘rule of law’.
Canada and Mexico too are suspicious of Donald Trump’s agenda. But if you ask Grok or Google AI about American intervention in Venezuela, they would simply argue that whatever the US does is the ‘rule of law’, so they do not accept that the US blatantly violated Venezuelan sovereignty.
Whatever you may think, the fact is that if Russia were not a military power, the Western world would have demolished it and divided it into so many pieces that you would not even remember it as a great nation. The agenda remains the same, and that is why the Ukraine project continues despite the difficult ground realities.
A powerful Soviet Union was always creating a counterforce against a unipolar world, and people rejoiced in the West when it broke. But in his 25 years in power, Vladimir Putin has brought Russia back into the reckoning as an important player in world affairs, and that is a good sign.
The world must be multipolar, and the UN system needs to be strengthened so that each country respects and follows it. But the system has considerably weakened in recent years.
The Global South Is Seeking Sovereignty Over Its Own Resources
India, and for that matter any other country, has a right to pursue its independent foreign policy. It would be great if there were a just and logical world order, but how is that possible if there is little remorse for historical injustice and acknowledgement of the legacy of colonialism, which has modernised itself in the name of ‘capitalism’?
The so-called private property of big transnational corporations cannot survive without imperial support; hence, the nexus between capitalism and imperialism is extremely close.
The United States and the Western world have provided us with opportunities too and have given us ideas about democracy, human rights and liberal thought. But now, in this age, all those beautiful things have become a matter of the past, being openly dissociated from, while the capture of natural resources is being carried out blatantly.
All these alliances are emerging in response to such tyrannical economic and military punishment. The leading countries need to speak and find solutions to these critical issues, involving the stakeholders too.
India Needs Alternatives, Not Alliances That Limit Its Choices
India must remain part of all these international structures and forums that provide it with alternatives in pursuit of its national interests. There is nothing wrong with India being part of BRICS, strengthening its ties with the Global South, maintaining its relations with Russia and China, and simultaneously engaging with the West.
A mature foreign policy is not about choosing one camp over another. It is about ensuring that India has the freedom to choose what serves its own interests.
In a changing world order, India’s strength lies precisely in its ability to maintain strategic autonomy, engage with competing blocs and remain open to multiple possibilities. BRICS does not require India to abandon the West, just as closer ties with the West should not require India to weaken its engagement with the Global South or the East.
India’s history, geography, economic interests and civilisational links give it a unique position. It should use that position to help build a genuinely multipolar world rather than becoming a subordinate partner of any one power bloc.
