What India Gets Out of BRICS

India Prepares for BRICS Leaders' Summit

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South Asia Brief:

What India Gets Out of BRICS

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South Asia Brief

News and analysis from India and its neighboring countries in South Asia, a region home to one-fourth of the world’s population. Delivered Wednesday.

What India Gets Out of BRICS

Ahead of the group’s leaders’ summit, New Delhi is pulling out the stops.

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*Kugelman-Michael-foreign-policy-columnist13*

*Michael Kugelman*

By **Michael Kugelman**, the writer of *Foreign Policy*’s weekly South Asia Brief and a senior fellow for South Asia at the Atlantic Council.

!A worker in an orange reflective vest leans down to adjust a component of a two-wheeled cart. People mill about behind him, some crossing a driveway, others waiting at a bus stop. Trees and a few high-rise buildings are visible in the distance.

*A worker in an orange reflective vest leans down to adjust a component of a two-wheeled cart. People mill about behind him, some crossing a driveway, others waiting at a bus stop. Trees and a few high-rise buildings are visible in the distance.*

A municipal worker carries out maintenance at a bus stand near a sign displayed ahead of the BRICS summit, seen in New Delhi on Sept. 9. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images

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September 9, 2026, 5:01 PM

Welcome to*Foreign Policy*’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: India gears up for the **BRICS leaders’ summit** this weekend, **Nepal’s youth movement** marks its protest anniversary as the country reels from deadly floods, and **Bangladesh’s energy crunch** puts pressure on the government.

Welcome to*Foreign Policy*’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: India gears up for the **BRICS leaders’ summit** this weekend, **Nepal’s youth movement** marks its protest anniversary as the country reels from deadly floods, and **Bangladesh’s energy crunch** puts pressure on the government.

Sign up to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox every Wednesday.

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New Delhi Preps for BRICS Summit

India’s government is pulling out all the stops ahead of the BRICS leaders’ summit hosted in New Delhi on Sept. 12 and 13. Commandos are staging security protocol drills; police are carrying motorcade rehearsals; and city officials are executing a makeover that includes fixing roads, planting flower beds, and deploying BRICS branding.

BRICS—named after its original members of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has long been a critical institution for India. New Delhi balances its membership in the grouping, meant to provide alternatives to Western economic institutions, with its close ties with the West; in doing so, it bolsters its strategic autonomy.

The core goals and priorities of BRICS align with Indian ones: engagement with the global south, advocating for United Nations reform, embracing multilateralism. Most BRICS members are also top Indian partners, and India’s ongoing albeit modest rapprochement with China certainly helps.

The grouping expanded in 2024, and aside from Iran, every new member is a close Indian friend. They include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates.

This year’s leaders’ summit, which follows a BRICS foreign ministers’ forum in New Delhi in May, is especially significant for India, though. The high-level summit offers the world’s fastest-growing major economy an opportunity to showcase its convening power and reassert its global leadership.

India hasn’t regressed in this realm per se, but in recent months it has been somewhat upstaged in international diplomacy by its rival Pakistan, thanks to Islamabad’s lead mediation role in the Iran war and its increasing influence in the Middle East—from growing arms sales to participation in new bilateral and multilateral defense pacts with regional allies.

Further, the BRICS summit provides India with an important space for deeper engagement with the global south amid rising discontent with the Western-led global economic order. New Delhi takes very seriously its goal of becoming a leader of the global south—an objective tied to both its great-power aspirations and historical leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement decades ago.

But this effort faces obstacles, especially given India’s limited inroads in Latin America and Africa. Notably, China has a major investment presence in both regions and also seeks to assert itself as a global south leader. The upcoming summit gives Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi a chance to engage bilaterally with the leaders of Brazil and new member Ethiopia.

Finally, this weekend’s summit provides India with a platform to make a strong pitch for freer markets and trade and more multilateralism amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s second-term policies, especially high tariffs. These policies probably inspired one of the themes of the summit, economic resilience.

This theme is sure to resonate among all BRICS members, and India’s approach aims to ensure consensus for a strong joint statement—an outcome that New Delhi considers essential for a successful summit.

The lead-up to BRICS leaders’ summits tends to produce contrasting commentary. One position dismisses the grouping as irrelevant, a talk shop incapable of producing anything of substance. The other celebrates it as a counter to the Western-led global order.

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