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BRICS is India’s moment. Its neighbours are watching—and worrying about missing out

Closer to India’s borders, the BRICS conversation is driven less by the grouping itself than by FOMO—Fear of Missing Out and bilateral angst—over access, exclusion and unresolved tensions with New Delhi.

Beyond BRICS’ global messaging as pro-rest rather than anti-West, and the idea of an ‘India moment’, there is a third line of observation that deserves attention. India’s immediate neighbourhood is watching the Summit closely, particularly for what the presence of Russia and Iran could mean for the wider global crisis. 

Closer to India’s borders, the BRICS conversation is driven less by the grouping itself than by FOMO—Fear of Missing Out and bilateral angst—over access, exclusion and unresolved tensions with New Delhi. 

And the reading of it actually provides visuals of India’s leadership in the future at regional and global forums, and the discomfort regional countries might attach to it. Let’s read Dhaka at first.  

Dhaka invited but not invited

Statements from Dhaka on BRICS may be more explicit, as they offer a closer view of the state of affairs between India and Bangladesh. In a reported statement on the Bangladesh Prime Minister Tarique Rahman not being invited to the BRICS Summit for outreach, its Foreign Affairs State Minister Humaiun Kabir added, “How shall we go? Has anyone from the Bangladesh government been invited? Our prime minister was not invited. Who told you that our Prime Minister was invited? The BIMSTEC Chair was invited.” 

Without a doubt, India invited Dhaka as the current chair of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), as it did to Nepal in 2016, but not in its capacity as a state. Bangladesh is neither a member nor a partner country, so an invitation in a state capacity should not arise at all. BRICS engages with regional forums on economic issues; hence, Dhaka was invited as the current BIMSTEC chair. 

For Delhi, it is purely a matter of prerogative and priorities, especially given the need to pay enough attention to Chinese, Russian and Iranian counterparts. 

Meanwhile, with tensions looming between Dhaka and Delhi, and no visible signs of a bilateral meeting between........

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