Twenty-five years after the acronym BRIC was coined to describe the emerging engines of global growth, the grouping returns to New Delhi at a moment when the world economy is again being tested by war, energy shocks and geopolitical fragmentation. The timing could hardly be more pertinent. West Asia is heating up again, with the conflict threatening to spill wider. Crude oil has floated back above $100 a barrel, while attacks on commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz have revived old vulnerabilities.
That gives immense strategic significance to India’s BRICS chairship. The summit is no longer simply about expanding the influence of emerging economies. It is about whether the now-expanded bloc can offer practical answers in a world increasingly exposed to fragmented supply chains, weaponised trade, volatile energy markets and competing geopolitical blocs. For India, the emphasis is on resilience, food, energy and supply-chain security, while giving the Global South a stronger voice in institutions that still largely reflect the post-Second World War balance of power.
The challenge is to make BRICS a complementary engine of development, rather than simply an anti-Western counterweight. That distinction matters. BRICS has grown from Brazil, Russia, India and China into an 11-member grouping, with South Africa joining in 2010 and Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entering in 2024, followed by Indonesia in 2025. The expansion has not only brought together major energy producers, consumers and trading nations, but also competing strategic interests.
The faultlines are clearly visible. The expanded bloc has struggled to maintain consensus on occasions. This weekend, the widening differences between Iran and the UAE could make this summit another test of BRICS’ ability to speak with one voice and India’s ability to forge consensus. There is also a striking historical symmetry. The first BRIC foreign ministers’ meeting in 2006 was held amid intense international concern over Iran and West Asia. Two decades later, Iran is not merely part of the conversation; it is a full BRICS member.
The summit also poignantly opens on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, an event that changed the security architecture of West Asia and the wider world. The question this year before BRICS, therefore, is bigger than a declaration. Can an increasingly multipolar Global South build institutions capable of cushioning its members from crises and give them greater agency in shaping what comes next?