India’s BRICS presidency is facing a test. Two key ministerial-level meetings, the BRICS deputy foreign ministers’ meeting in April and the Foreign Ministers’ meeting in May 2026, reportedly struggled to produce a consensus statement, exposing widening divergences within the grouping. Significantly, the eventual Chair’s Statement acknowledged “differing views” among members, underlining the depth of the internal divergences India must now manage.[1]

The episode reflects a broader challenge confronting New Delhi. India assumed the BRICS chairmanship at a moment when the grouping is simultaneously expanding in geopolitical weight and fragmenting internally. The inclusion of new members following the BRICS Johannesburg Summit 2023 has strengthened BRICS’ claim to represent the Global South and marked the grouping’s most significant institutional enlargement since its creation.

At the same time, expansion introduced sharper regional rivalries, competing strategic priorities and growing ideological divergences.[2] In addition, the broader international environment has become increasingly unstable in recent years, marked by intensifying great-power competition, disruptions in global supply chains and rising protectionist economic policies. The United States–Israel war on Iran, a BRICS member, has further deepened the geopolitical uncertainty.

India’s BRICS presidency therefore comes at a moment when the grouping faces mounting pressure to preserve both relevance and cohesion. The central question, hence, is no longer whether India can replicate the diplomatic success of its 2023 G20 presidency. Rather, it is whether New Delhi can prevent BRICS from losing coherence altogether. The challenge before India is not to eliminate internal differences, which are likely to grow as the grouping expands, but to manage them effectively enough to preserve functional cooperation.

Restoring Political Cohesion

In multilateral diplomacy, symbolism often precedes substance—a summit attended by all major leaders signals credibility and continued relevance, even when disagreements persist. Conversely, visible absences reinforce perceptions of fragmentation and institutional decline.

Following the inability of ministerial consultations to produce unified political messaging, the summit itself will become an important test of whether BRICS can still project collective relevance despite widening internal divisions. For India, ensuring participation from core members such as Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa will be essential to reaffirm the grouping’s foundational structure. Equally significant would be the joint presence of geopolitical rivals such as Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Even limited convergence at the summit level would show that BRICS can still bring geopolitical rivals to the same diplomatic platform.

Though it couldn’t produce consensus, the recent BRICS meetings in New Delhi suggest that key members remain invested in preserving the grouping despite widening geopolitical tensions.[3] Achieving broader participation at the summit level, however, will require sustained diplomatic outreach and the strategic use of bilateral engagements on the margins. If India succeeds in ensuring full representation, it would already have cleared a major hurdle in reinforcing BRICS’ relevance.

Avoiding Ideological Polarisation

BRICS has long articulated a non-Western perspective in global governance. However, there is a growing risk that the grouping could gradually evolve into an overtly anti-Western bloc. Debates surrounding de-dollarisation, sanctions and alternative payment mechanisms have increasingly reinforced such perceptions internationally, even as BRICS members continue to differ over the........

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