Does the BRICS summit signify a shift for Indian foreign policy?

With a strong push­back against uni­lat­eral west­ern sanc­tions; cri­ti­cism of Israel over the killing of civil­ians, the attacks on Lebanon, and the forced occu­pa­tion of Palestinian ter­rit­ory; and sup­port for UN reform as well as a BRICS pay­ment mech­an­ism, the New Delhi Declar­a­tion of 2026 has been likened to India’s for­eign policy from its non­aligned past. But was it a com­prom­ise by New Delhi to build con­sensus, or will the state­ment, and Prime Min­is­ter Nar­en­dra Modi’s close engage­ment with the lead­ers of Iran, Rus­sia, and China, have a bear­ing on India’s for­eign policy? Ajay Bis­aria and Happy­mon Jacob dis­cuss the ques­tion in a con­ver­sa­tion mod­er­ated by Suhas­ini Haidar.

Is the New Delhi declar­a­tion a return to non­align­ment or just moment­ary rhet­oric?

Ajay Bis­aria: Broadly, the declar­a­tion is in keep­ing with India’s for­eign policy, whether that is stra­tegic autonomy and multi­align­ment or multi­vec­tor engage­ment. In terms of optics, India is more on the front foot and less apo­lo­getic than it used to be. India is get­ting more and more com­fort­able in a non­west­ern forum, say­ing that it is emphat­ic­ally part of it. While it doesn’t neces­sar­ily mean a shift in pos­ture, it does sug­gest a greater degree of com­fort with a dif­fer­ent set of optics.

Happy­mon Jacob: The BRICS sum­mit is under spot­light and things under spot­light look big­ger and shi­nier than they really are. BRICS is a polit­ical plat­form; not a secur­ity plat­form. I don’t think India’s policy today is that of non­align­ment at all. Non­align­ment was a strategy for a weak state in a bipolar world. Today, we are in a dif­fer­ent kind of world and the desire in India is to become one of the poles in a mul­ti­polar world. There is a ref­er­ence to the Bandung Spirit (Non­Aligned Move­ment) in the BRICS declar­a­tion in pur­suit of a fairer, more inclus­ive, and rep­res­ent­at­ive mul­ti­lat­eral sys­tem. But that is nos­tal­gia, not real policy.

How import­ant are optics such as the Modi­Xi­Putin hand­shakes or the Prime Min­is­ter reach­ing out to the Ira­nian Pres­id­ent at a time when these lead­ers rep­res­ent the “anti­West­ern lobby”?

HJ: The optics are, in some ways, the sub­stance here. Chinese Pres­id­ent Xi Jin­ping had not been to India in nearly seven years. And we had the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince (Khaled bin Zayed Al Nahyan) sit­ting at the same table. In some ways, the pho­to­graph is the mes­sage. At the BRICS out­reach ses­sion, a lot of powers who don’t oth­er­wise get into great power con­ver­sa­tions were present. So, there was a lot of social­isa­tion hap­pen­ing inside the plat­form and on its mar­gins. But I think we should under­stand that this is not really hav­ing an impact on how the world is being shaped. The declar­a­tion calls for exer­cising restraint and pro­tect­ing civil­ians and civil­ian infra­struc­ture and poin­tedly recalls the respect­ive national pos­i­tions of each mem­ber. It is fant­astic, but the argu­ment here is about optics, not com­mon pos­i­tions.

AB: I would agree that these mul­ti­lat­eral fora are often per­form­at­ive to a degree and there­fore all optics mat­ter. But in a mul­ti­lat­eral doc­u­ment, you can say the silent part aloud; what a coun­try won’t say in a national state­ment, it can say aloud in a high­level mul­ti­lat­eral sum­mit. For instance, every­one knows that the phrase “uni­lat­eral coer­cive meas­ures” is about U.S. actions. So, you’re not really say­ing we con­demn U.S. action on so­and­so date; you’re simply say­ing that we are against U.S. tar­iffs and [west­ern] sanc­tions. There is an under­stand­ing now that what is said in a mul­ti­lat­eral doc­u­ment can be dif­fer­ent from a national pos­i­tion.

Every BRICS sum­mit since 2022, includ­ing the 2024 sum­mit in Rus­sia, has made a ref­er­ence to Ukraine. The New Delhi Declar­a­tion is the first time that ref­er­ences to Ukraine have been dropped. Why?

AB: My guess would be that it was a Rus­sian veto. In the Rio BRICS declar­a­tion last year, there was even con­dem­na­tion of a Ukrain­ian attack on Rus­sia without an equi­val­ent con­dem­na­tion of any­thing Rus­sia had done. So this time, instead of just con­demning Ukraine, they might have decided to drop the whole thing entirely. It is very dis­ap­point­ing that a major mul­ti­lat­eral geo­pol­it­ical forum doesn’t call for bel­li­ger­ents to end the war, but instead stays silent. That is an error of omis­sion. I sus­pect the

Rus­si­ans said, no, we don’t accept it, and in the interest of hav­ing a con­sensus, it was dropped.

HJ: I think India has no par­tic­u­lar reason to push for that lan­guage to be present in the declar­a­tion because we have quite clearly sided with the Rus­sian Fed­er­a­tion in this war, indir­ectly if not dir­ectly. There must have been Rus­sian push but I see no reason why there could not have been some neut­ral lan­guage to put in [ref­er­ences to Ukraine], given the pre­ced­ent (of pre­vi­ous BRICS joint declar­a­tions).

The con­dem­na­tion of Israel in the state­ment is very strong. Does this rep­res­ent a shift for India given the PM’s speech on stand­ing “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel dur­ing his visit in Feb­ru­ary 2026?

AB: The big pic­ture is that India is try­ing to estab­lish neut­ral and bal­anced pos­i­tions on both con­flicts, and there­fore not be seen as back­ing only one side in either. It has taken safety in the lan­guage of the United Nations. There’s a spe­cific men­tion of the UN Secur­ity Coun­cil Res­ol­u­tion 2803 of Novem­ber last year, which spoke about an Inter­na­tional Sta­bil­isa­tion Force and a Board of Peace. Some of the lan­guage has been drawn from there. The over­all pos­ture is: let’s try to be bal­anced and reas­on­ably neut­ral.

HJ: There is a clear dis­junc­tion between the state­ment and what Prime Min­is­ter Modi told the Israeli par­lia­ment. Per­haps the declar­a­tion is in some way inten­ded to counter the per­cep­tion that India was get­ting too close to Israel. The two­state solu­tion has always been India’s pos­i­tion, so the declar­a­tion doesn’t con­tra­dict Indian policy there. But with the UAE, Egypt, Iran, and Indone­sia in the room, there was only so much India could do to push back against the harsh­ness of that lan­guage. What Prime Min­is­ter Modi told the Israelis in Israel is emo­tional and con­sequen­tial. But what is writ­ten in the BRICS Declar­a­tion is mul­ti­lat­eral, sym­bolic, and not very con­sequen­tial. I would still say the bal­ance is tilted in favour of Israel as a part­ner.

How sig­ni­fic­ant are the para­graphs on eco­nomic issues, par­tic­u­larly on intra­BRICS trade using pay­ments in national cur­ren­cies? These 10 or 11 coun­tries rep­res­ent 40% of the

global eco­nomy, and 25% of global trade. Could they pose a chal­lenge to the G7?

HJ: Indian policy has two parts. One is the sup­port for local cur­rency pay­ment mech­an­isms. I don’t think India has sup­por­ted a per­man­ent pay­ment mech­an­ism under the ambit of BRICS. I think there is an acknow­ledge­ment that there is no one­size­fits­all approach as far as cur­rency set­tle­ment pay­ment mech­an­isms are con­cerned. I would think twice before sign­ing on to a non­U. S. dol­lar pay­ment mech­an­ism, which I believe will mean the next big cur­rency or the next power­ful cur­rency. And unfor­tu­nately, China’s cur­rency is going to be that big cur­rency.

AB: BRICS is a coun­ter­point to the G7, an eco­nomic group­ing that also has geo­pol­it­ical respons­ib­il­it­ies. But I think India also finds itself at an inter­sec­tion with the G7, because it is a sort of per­man­ent invitee to the G7, along with Aus­tralia and South Korea. I have made the argu­ment else­where that the G7 should dis­solve itself and become the Demo­cratic 10 (D10), includ­ing these three coun­tries. I think that is the real stra­tegic autonomy or multi­vec­tor engage­ment, where India becomes the bridge between the east and the west, but also a voice of the south.

Will any of the decisions at BRICS see their way into future Indian for­eign policy? Or is this just one moment with BRICS coun­tries?

AB: I think this is a moment of suc­cess in Indian dip­lomacy in terms of con­duct­ing a major inter­na­tional event. In Novem­ber, there will be another oppor­tun­ity to meet global lead­ers at the ASEAN­East Asia Sum­mit in the Phil­ip­pines, fol­lowed by Prime Min­is­ter Modi’s vis­its to the U.S., Canada, and Brus­sels, where he could poten­tially secure three trade agree­ments. I think that’s what dip­lomacy will be about: multi­vec­tor engage­ment; keep­ing all stake­hold­ers engaged, in mul­tiple dir­ec­tions.

HJ: India has only so much dip­lo­matic cap­ital. There­fore, it is import­ant to pick our battles, for­ums, and part­ners. I think we should be present in those rooms where global rules on AI are being framed, and where the future of space gov­ernance is dis­cussed. I don’t think the next world order is going to be made in for­ums such as the BRICS but in those silent small rooms.

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This Interview was hosted by Suhasini Haider for The Hindu.