It would have been different if India had taken firm positions when it mattered, stood up to bullying by powerful countries and supported its traditional allies when they needed it the most.
Police personnel stand near a BRICS Summit billboard amid preparations ahead of the summit, in the Dhaula Kuan area of New Delhi, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. Photo PTI /Salman Ali
Despite the photo-ops and handshakes at Bishkek, India could not have hosted the BRICS Summit at a more challenging time than now, given that its relations with member countries have faced turbulent weather in the recent past. And the bad news is that it cannot blame anyone else for that, but itself.
India holds the presidency of BRICS in 2026, and the 18th BRICS Summit is scheduled to take place on September 12–13, 2026, in New Delhi.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel in February 2026 and the bear-hug 48 hours before Israel attacked Iran, a BRICS+ member, would rank among the most serious diplomatic blunders of recent times, given that Israel took India for a ride. While other BRICS member countries condemned the attack loud and clear, India did not find the courage to condemn Israel and the US and defend Iran’s sovereignty.
After dragging Israel to the International Criminal Court over the genocide in Palestine, which resulted in the Court issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, South Africa, a founding member of BRICS, condemned the attack on Iran.
It said, “These actions raise serious concerns under international law, including the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the protection of civilians enshrined in the UN Charter and international humanitarian law.”
India not condemning Israel’s attack on Iran
In 2025, under the Brazilian presidency of BRICS, the bloc pushed for a joint statement, which expressed grave concern over military strikes on Iran, described them as violations of international law and the UN Charter, and called for diplomacy and de-escalation. Given that India did not support a statement by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) condemning Israel’s attack on Iran, it is unlikely that India supported the BRICS statement either.
Two other BRICS founding members – Russia and China – who are also permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC), criticised the text of the UNSC resolution that condemned Iran’s attacks on Gulf countries while failing to address or condemn the US and Israeli attack against Iran. Russia and China abstained from voting. The resolution, which Iran decried as a “biased, ‘politically motivated’ measure engineered by the United States and Israel”, was co-sponsored by India.
While Amnesty International’s damning report on India supplying arms to Israel was establishing complicity in the genocide in Palestine, it could not have come at a worse time than this, given that India did not condemn either the genocide or the attack on Iran, and there is no way to ascertain that the weapons were used only for the genocide and not in the attack against Iran.
Another founding member of BRICS, Brazil, stood up to the Trump tantrums when the new slew of tariffs was announced. President Lula openly challenged Trump, calling it a “lamentable milestone”. He made it clear that Brazil does not recognise the legitimacy of investigations without support under the multilateral rules of trade. The Lula government stood its ground, asserting that “we will not bow our heads or bend to foreign interests” while vowing to retaliate.
Instead of BRICS as a bloc resisting the tariff terror, India warmed up to the Trump administration, believing that such a move would do it good. Not only was it misplaced, but it also made India look weak and lacking in courage to stand up to bullying. Not many Global South countries would want a champion who has weak knees and lacks the courage to stand up when it matters.
India’s relationship with China has not improved since the days of the Galwan clash in 2020, in which 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers were killed. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers calling for a boycott of Chinese goods and India banning some Chinese apps did not go well. Chinese investments were frozen, and heavy military deployments along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) expanded dramatically. None of this worked in India’s favour, forcing foreign minister S. Jaishankar to recently admit that “India has to do business with China.”
While dialogue between India and China has improved, Indian and Chinese army patrols came face to face even in late July in Arunachal Pradesh.
The BJP govt’s unprecedented bad patch at home
Domestically, too, the government is passing through an unprecedented bad patch. News of crumbling infrastructure, even newly constructed infrastructure, some of it inaugurated by PM Modi, is aplenty on social media, exposing massive corruption. A spontaneous protest by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) snowballed into a massive one, similar to what was witnessed during the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)-National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the farm policies, but with one difference: this time, it was led by the youth, the Gen Zs.
Their bold, aggressive and irreverent strategies and articulation took the government by surprise, prompting it to resort to brutal police action, which further aggravated the situation. The protests, which spread to different parts of the country, exposed the feet of clay of the Modi government and re-energised opposition voices. Those voices are finding more and more space in the media, something that had not happened for more than a decade.
A recent claim of India’s Gross Domestic Product) GDP growth of 7.8% was shredded by economists and statisticians, raising yet again concerns about data fudging by the government to project better economic indicators.
A People’s BRICS Summit held in New Delhi last month, attended by over 200 delegates from different parts of the country, deliberated on issues that should be taken up by India at the Summit. The Delhi Declaration of the People’s BRICS pushed a people’s agenda for the official BRICS Summit.
It demanded the reduction and elimination of inequality within and between countries through concrete, time-bound commitments; an end to natural resource extractivism; the promotion of food sovereignty; and the building of resilient South-South food systems centred on small-scale producers, local control and ecological sustainability.
It also demanded the protection and upholding of workers’ rights across the Global South; that trade agreements must serve equality, environmental sustainability and people’s rights; the building of a people-centred South-South climate architecture that advances just transitions; and the development by the Global South of alternative financial architectures that reduce debt dependence, challenge dollar dominance and strengthen financial sovereignty.
Responding to the official theme of ‘Women-led Development at BRICS Summit’, the declaration demanded that women-led development must advance equality, autonomy, political power and participation.
At a time when Artificial Intelligence (AI) is promoted as the antidote for all ills, it demanded that AI and the data economy must serve the public interest, workers’ rights, technological sovereignty and ecological justice, and that technology and digital governance must strengthen democratic rights, inclusion, privacy and public accountability, while climate finance must give communities greater control over climate action.
It demanded the strengthening of universal public healthcare, equitable access and the right to health; that peace and security must be rooted in justice, human dignity, sovereignty and freedom from war, occupation and coercion; and the strengthening of people’s rights and participatory democracy.
Where bear-hugs and artificial laughter fail
During the G20 Summit, India positioned itself as the ‘Voice of the Global South’ and held two major meetings of Global South countries. If India attempted to do the same before the current BRICS Summit, it would meet with a cold response.
India is learning that platitudes from other countries, manufactured highest awards from them, bear-hugs and artificial laughter do not translate into better relations with them.
It would have been different if India had taken firm positions when it mattered, stood up to bullying by powerful countries and supported its traditional allies when they needed it the most. However, looking at India’s record at home, where constitutional values are flouted, democratic rights are crushed, hate is marketed wholesale and paid PR is used to cover up poor economic performance, it would be too much to expect.
Joe Athialy is the executive director of the New-Delhi based Centre for Financial Accountability.
This article is part of a series on BRICS and Global South cooperation curated by The Wire and the Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA). Read part one here, part two here, part three here and part five here.
