The existing world order has not been kind to India so far, so we must not indulge in nostalgia or waste any effort trying to balance the new and old orders — we must instead focus solely on building rapidly, reforming economically, and becoming prosperous, without unnecessary deliberation. It is here that BRICS becomes very relevant for India. What is fastest is often preferable to what is best in a rapidly changing global scenario.

The new world order, which shifted from unipolarity to multipolarity over the last two decades, now faces a choice between two scenarios. In the first case, countries would seek to increase their spheres of influence in a jungle where the strong eat the weak, a survival of the fittest, in a reductionist win-lose situation. It would be a world where the older ‘rules-based order’ gives way to a ‘no-rules-based’ disorder.

In the second case, countries would seek to enhance their spheres of security, recognising that multipolarity means finding ways to achieve win-win outcomes in small groupings of countries that come together for contained agendas that improve economic well-being and defence insurance. It would be a non-reductionist, holistic world with no friends and no enemies, only national interests. In this sense, the present century need not even be termed the century of Asia, or any similar phraseology. In this second scenario, the 21st century would be the century of the entire world.

In such an era of rapid and sometimes unpredictable geopolitical changes, the dispersion of power from one pole, the US, to multiple poles across the world has organically coalesced as BRICS, which has now expanded from the original five nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) to the present time, when BRICS has 11 full member countries and 10 partner countries.

BRICS is a genuinely international grouping spanning Eurasia, Africa, and South America. The grouping was formed in 2009 to call for more adequate representation in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). The transition from a mere representational grouping to one with significant economic weight has been remarkable. With India assuming the BRICS presidency in 2026, ideas and solutions for new payment systems and de-dollarised trade are gaining traction. It is in this regard that a deeper dive into the panchamukha of BRICS is worthwhile, also given the non-temporary nature of geopolitical turbulence emanating from the Western world.

The substitution of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency by alternative means for countries to trade with one another has become a primary identity marker of BRICS . India, with its UPI online payments system, has emerged as a clear........

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