The just-concluded BRICS summit in Delhi may not be remembered for a particularly muscular declaration. But that may miss its more important consequence for India. Did BRICS help accelerate the thaw in India-China relations?

India’s diplomatic achievement was not that it convened the summit, since it was anyway the BRICS chair. It was that it managed to hammer out a common declaration among countries whose interests frequently collide. Iran and the UAE could sit around the same table despite their tensions; China could sign language condemning the Pahalgam terrorist attack; and members could agree on a dialogue in West Asia despite sharply different alignments. India had pulled off something similar during its G20 presidency in 2023, when it found consensus language despite bitter divisions over Ukraine.

Managing Contradictions With China

There is a lesson here closer home. If India can manage contradictions within BRICS, why can it not manage the contradictions in its own multi-compartment relationship with China?

The Modi-Xi meeting on the summit sidelines was more important than the communique. Xi was visiting India for the first time in seven years. The two leaders discussed border peace, business links, market access, the structural trade imbalance, and greater exchanges. It would be foolish to call this reconciliation. But it is certainly an opportunity.

India and China are neighbours, accounting together for more than one-third of humanity. Geography cannot be wished away. Nor will their border dispute disappear soon. Deng Xiaoping’s famous advice to Rajiv Gandhi in 1988 remains relevant: if our generation lacks the wisdom to solve the boundary question, let us leave it to a wiser future generation.

That does not mean forgetting Galwan, where 20 Indian soldiers died in 2020. The border must remain strongly defended. But the border can stay cold without freezing the entire........

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