New Delhi: Three years after India helped broker a consensus at the G20 Summit despite sharp divisions over the Ukraine war, New Delhi faces an even more
complicated diplomatic challenge as it chairs the BRICS Summit.
The two-day gathering at Bharat Mandapam will bring together leaders from 11 member countries, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It will also put countries caught up in the Iran-US conflict, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, around the same table.
For India, the challenge will be to keep the grouping focused on cooperation while preventing geopolitical disputes from derailing a joint declaration.
The conflict involving Iran has made the task particularly difficult. Tehran is expected to seek a strong response against the US military campaign, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE have their own concerns following Iranian strikes in the Gulf.
India maintains close strategic relationships with all three countries, making neutrality crucial. The difficulty was already visible at the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in May, which ended without a joint statement amid differences over the Middle East situation.
Another factor hanging over the summit is Washington. Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised BRICS, viewing the grouping as a potential challenge to US economic interests.
India has sought to counter the perception that BRICS is an anti-Western alliance. New Delhi has also clarified that discussions on reducing dependence on the US dollar do not involve creating a rival BRICS currency.
The timing makes the exercise more delicate. At the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, India backed a declaration condemning strikes on Iran and supporting Tehran’s right to a peaceful nuclear programme.
At BRICS, however, New Delhi will need to prevent its chairmanship from being interpreted as support for any particular geopolitical camp.
The objective for India is therefore not to take sides, but to find enough common ground for BRICS to speak with one voice. That will be New Delhi’s biggest diplomatic balancing act this weekend.
