New Delhi [India], September 10 (ANI): India faces a significant diplomatic test in forging consensus at the upcoming BRICS Leaders' Summit, according to Vice President of Studies and Foreign Policy at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Harsh V Pant.
Speaking on the expectations surrounding the summit, Pant emphasised that the gathering occurs at a critical juncture for the international community and highlighted India’s central role in steering the platform toward practical solutions for the Global South.
Pant noted that deep divisions, ongoing wars in Europe and the Middle East, and a failing multilateral system have left developing nations vulnerable.
“I think the summit comes at a very important time as we are seeing how the world geopolitics is evolving. Fragmentation is growing and great powers are at loggerheads with each other. Wars are raging across the world from Middle East to Europe, with no end in sight,” Pant said.
He highlighted that the fallout from these crises is disproportionately borne by developing countries: “The impact of this fragmentation conflict is being felt mostly by the developing world, by countries in the Global South... clear expectation is that BRICS as a platform will be able to provide some practical solutions to the problems and would be able to put on the global agenda the issues that matter most to the Global South.”
As traditional multilateral institutions are failing to address these needs, Pant observed that “BRICS has emerged as a platform where there are a lot of expectations attached to it.”
Building a unified position among BRICS members will be a complex task for India, especially given the sharp geopolitical divergences among member states, such as the US-China rivalry, the Russia-Ukraine war, and tensions involving Iran, Israel, and the UAE. Pointing to the earlier failure of BRICS Foreign Ministers to issue a joint statement, Pant noted that the leaders' summit will be a major test of New Delhi’s diplomacy.
“This particular leader summit will be testing India's diplomatic mettle in more ways than one,” Pant stated.
To overcome these divisions, India is framing discussions around non-controversial, core developmental challenges where member states share common ground.
“How India is framing this conversation is by focusing on the issues where possibly countries cannot diverge in their approaches—where you will have countries agreeing to the challenges that Global South is facing,” Pant explained.
He added that India’s strategic focus relies on its core themes of resilience, sustainability, cooperation, and innovation: “If there is a food crisis, if there is an energy crisis around the world, it is impacting the Global South, the developing world, some of the poorest members of the international community. So it is in the interest of BRICS members to try to find solutions to that... In that context, India's idea of resilience, sustainable cooperation, sustainability, and innovation—India is hoping that it would be easy to build consensus around them.”
Pant warned that failure to reach a consensus could undermine the grouping's authority: “It is important for BRICS' credibility as well to come up with a joint statement because many countries are looking at BRICS with a degree of optimism. And if BRICS is not able to come up with a joint statement, then it's likely that optimism would fade away and BRICS' credibility will also suffer.”
Addressing the potential attendance of Chinese President Xi Jinping—which has yet to be formally confirmed—Pant noted that a high-profile bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi could significantly influence the summit's overall narrative.
While both nations have been working to stabilise relations following the 2020 Galwan Valley clash, Pant observed that rebuilding trust requires substantial effort.
“We are looking at India-China resetting their relationship after the 2020 Galwan crisis, and both leaders are trying very hard to rebuild the relationship. This is a relationship that really needs hard work... a relationship where trust is missing,” Pant said.
He further pointed out that a head-of-state meeting between India and China on the sidelines could dominate the news cycle.
“If Xi Jinping is here in Delhi and there is a meeting with Prime Minister Modi, then it will most likely overshadow the BRICS agenda as well, because this will be a big meeting and there'll be a lot of commentary around it, a lot of analysis and assessment of that visit, which in some ways would take away from what BRICS may be trying to achieve," he said. (ANI)
BRICS summit will test India's diplomatic mettle in more ways than one: ORF VP Harsh Pant
