A Room of Global Heavyweights
The list of attendees for the summit at Bharat Mandapam on September 12-13 highlights the bloc's growing influence. Leaders from the eleven full member states were present, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. They
were joined by leaders from the bloc's newer members, such as Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian, Egypt's Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and Indonesia's Prabowo Subianto. The original five members—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—were all represented, though Brazil's foreign minister attended in place of its president. The expansion in 2024 and 2025 brought in Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Indonesia, significantly increasing the group's demographic and economic footprint. Today, the bloc represents nearly half the world's population and around 40% of global GDP.
Top of the Agenda: Resilience and Cooperation
Under its fourth-ever chairship, India themed the summit “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation, and Sustainability.” This framework guided discussions away from purely political coordination and towards practical solutions. Key agenda items included strengthening supply chains, enhancing cooperation in trade and technology, ensuring energy and food security, and reforming global governance institutions like the UN, IMF, and World Bank. The talks were particularly relevant given ongoing geopolitical conflicts and their disruption of global energy and supply networks. India’s goal was to position BRICS as a constructive, solutions-oriented forum that champions the developmental priorities of the Global South.
The De-Dollarization Debate Continues
One of the most talked-about topics in recent BRICS gatherings has been de-dollarization—the push to reduce dependence on the US dollar for international trade. However, India has been careful to frame this as an effort to promote the use of national currencies in bilateral trade to lower transaction costs, rather than an outright campaign to create a single BRICS currency to rival the dollar. While some members, like Russia and Iran, are keen to move away from the dollar due to sanctions, others, including India, are more cautious, fearing potential economic blowback. The idea of a common currency remains off the official agenda, with the focus staying on practical steps like improving cross-border payment systems. Experts note that while the rhetoric is strong, the actual shift away from the dollar in global reserves and trade settlement remains limited.
What It Means for India
For India, chairing the 2026 summit was a major opportunity to assert its foreign policy of strategic autonomy. The platform allows India to engage with China and Russia while maintaining crucial partnerships with the US and Europe. The presence of President Xi Jinping provided a significant opportunity for high-level dialogue, building on a meeting at the 2024 summit that helped reset the complex relationship. Economically, a key priority for India was to strengthen trade within the bloc, focusing on resilient value chains and greater market access for small and medium enterprises. By steering the conversation towards practical cooperation and a “humanity-first” approach, India aimed to ensure BRICS does not become an anti-West bloc, but remains a non-Western platform focused on the development needs of emerging economies.
