Is the Nature of BRICS Changing? Is this Change going to Affect India?

India is going to organize BRICS summit on 12-13 September, 2026. This is the fourth time that India is organizing BRICS Summit. Earlier Summits were organized in 2012,2016, and 2021. The 2026 summit is important as India may get next chance to organize the next BRICS summit only after a decade or so because the members of BRICS have increased from five to 11 at present. The BRICS Summits are organized by its members on rotation basis, and now rotation will take place among 11 members.

For 2026 Summit India has outlined the theme, which is- Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability as well as its lotus shaped logo. As a prelude to this summit, since May 2026, many Ministerial conferences of member countries have been organized by India to deliberate on the agenda of the summit. It seems, among other things,  India is going to focus on concerns of the global South in this summit, as she has done during the G-20 Summit. However, the enthusiasm of organizing BRICS Summit is not visible to the extent it was seen three years back during the G-20 Summit. Reasons are deeper. India may not have expressed its reservation openly to the changing nature of BRICS, but change is visible on the face of it, which India will have to face sooner or later.

Why BRICS was Established?

BRICS was established in 2006  with inspiration from the BRIC thesis advanced by Jim O Neil, the economist at the Goldman Sachs Group. The BRICS thesis proposed that the four emerging economies- China, India, Brazil and Russia- would replace the developed countries in terms of total GDP by the year 2050. It also proposed that the economies of these countries are complementary (not Competitive)  to each other, hence they will cooperate with each other. For example, Russia is endowed with energy resources, Brazil with raw materials and agricultural products, China with manufacturing capacity and India with manpower and human resources. Complementary means what one country lacks is offered by other.

It was with this premise, that the above four countries started negotiations and organize their first Summit in 2009 at Yekaterinburg, Russia. South Africa was as added as fifth  member in 2010 and accordingly BRIC was renamed as BRICS, as it stands now.

What was the Initial Focus of BRICS?

BRICS do not have its own constitution and formal structure, but from its activities one can guess that it, initially, focused on the three broad objectives:

1. To Promote Multifaceted cooperation among the member countries.
2. To demand for a multilateral global order which is inclusive in place on the one dominated by the US and its European allies.
3. To develop viable alternative global financial institutions in place of the Western dominated global financial architecture. It was in order to realize these objectives that BRICS founded two institutions: New Development Bank (NDB), and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA). The foundational agreement for NDB was signed on July 15, 2014, at the 6th BRICS Summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, but the bank started  operations in July 2015. In a way it was a replacement of the World Bank.  The CRA was established in 2015 with a $100 billion pool to protect member economies against short-term balance of payments pressures and global liquidity shocks. The CRA was perceived as replacement of IMF.

What has changed in the BRICS?

For the second time in the BRICS, it permitted massive expansion of its membership during the 2024 Summit in Russia. Since then Six new members have been added- UAE, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia.  

Many other countries were also willing to join the membership. But India opposed it. Finally, a new category of Partner Countries was created to accommodate them. Thus, in 2025,   ten Partner countries joined BRICS: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.

This expansion in both membership and Partner Category was not motivated by the original BRIC thesis- which considered BRIC as the group of fast emerging economies, but rather by political considerations by the two key members  Russia and China. In fact, the ongoing Ukraine war between the Ukraine Supported by the US and European allies and the Russia, supported by China, North Korea and Iran has intensified global polarization among the major powers of the world. Under the mentorship of Russia, China and Brazil, the BRICS attempted to create alternative currency arrangement to replace Dollar as global currency. This move was opposed by the American President Trump.  Which even threatened to imposed extra tariffs against BRICS members if they attempted to replace dollar as a global currency. Thus, the BRICS is taking a turn of Anti-American forum, in view of ongoing polarization. This is drastically different from the original mandate of BRICS proposed under the BRICS thesis. Besides, the above change, the increased membership of BRICS also affects its cohesiveness as a group. Earlier, China and India were able to manage tensions within the BRICS, but now new tensions within are likely to emerge. For example, during the BRICS Foreign Ministers meet in May, 2026, the UAE and Iran could not agree to the final declaration and it could not be issued. During the ongoing war  between the US and Iran, the latter has launched multiple attacks against UAE and Saudi Arabia.

How this Change affects India?

The fast-changing nature of BRICS as anti-US or anti-West forum in last two years does not suits India. India has close strategic and economic ties with the US as well as the European powers. If India talks of moderation in BRICS in the face of ongoing polarization, India may be gradually sidelined by the new members supported by China, and Russia. The projection of BRICS as anti-US forum makes India’s balancing games between the two sides difficult. Hence India may try to moderate the anti-US rhetoric of the BRCIS during the 2026 Summit. If it fails to do so it would be uneasy and challenging for India. These tensions will come to the fore during the 2026 Summit. For now, stakes within BRICS are not favourable for India’s balancing diplomacy.