India's Grand Moment At BRICS Summit: Expansion, Cohesion & Global South Interests

News18

8 hours ago

With Xi absent, and Putin constrained, PM Modi becomes the senior-most leader present among the founding members of BRICS.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on an 8-day diplomatic tour covering Ghana, Namibia, Argentina, Brazil, and Trinidad and Tobago. At the centre of this visit is the BRICS Leaders' Summit — now expanded from five to ten members, with 13 additional partner countries joining in. Three elements stand out: the changing nature of BRICS, the curious absence of Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the rising profile of India. For New Delhi, this is a moment to shape the future of BRICS — steering it away from bloc politics and aligning it with the real interests of the Global South.
PM Modi is all set to attend the 17th BRICS Summit in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro from July 5 to 8. And this year's summit presents a rare moment, an opening that India is poised to seize. Two of BRICS' founding members, China and Russia, will be represented not by their heads of state, but by deputies.
President Vladimir Putin, still under the shadow of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant, is giving the summit a pass. Brazil, a signatory to the ICC, has not offered Russia the guarantees it sought for Putin's presence. China's President Xi Jinping, on the other hand, is skipping the summit for reasons far less convincing—and far more telling.
Xi's 'Snub', Brazil 'Ignores'
The Chinese leader will not be showing up this time around, making it the first such absence from BRICS in the last 12 years of his presidency. Reports say that it may be because Brazil has invited PM Modi of India for a state dinner following the summit, which means that the India-Brazil relationship will take centre stage at this summit and Xi does not want to appear as 'a supporting actor".
This Chinese decision has not been viewed well by the government of Brazil. They see it as a snub. Brazilian officials are said to be displeased by the move. One senior source in Brasília told the SCMP that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had travelled to Beijing in May 'as a gesture of goodwill" and in 'expectation that the Chinese president would reciprocate" by attending the Rio summit in person.
It also does not help that China's official reasons simply do not add up. Beijing has cited scheduling concerns, and that it is busy preparing for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit which is as late September.
Brazil has raised the example of the BRICS Summit in 2010. At the time, China was grappling with a major earthquake. Still, its leader at the time, Hu Jintao, made sure to show up.
An advisor to Lula said, 'He [Hu Jintao] stayed only one day, but he came." Moreover, Chinese officials say that Xi and Lula have already met twice in under a year, so in-person engagement is not very necessary.
Given that BRICS is now a ten-member group with new heavyweights like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran, and its high on demand for aspiring nations in the Global South to join in, Beijing's official excuse for Xi's absence is somewhat weightless and flippant.
Meanwhile, Beijing's snub has not changed Brasilia's plans one bit. President Lula has stuck to his decision to host PM Modi, and reports of a major defence pact between India and Brazil are also doing the rounds, with Brazil expressing interest in Indian defence systems like the Akash air defence missiles.
India at the Centre of BRICS
With Xi absent, and Putin constrained, PM Modi becomes the senior-most leader present among the founding members of BRICS. That carries both symbolic and strategic significance.
For China, it has been hard to come to terms with India's rising profile in multilateral forums. PM Modi is a key figure across summits from the G7 summit to G20 and BRICS.
The evolving context of BRICS makes India's position all the more relevant. Since 2023, the group has expanded to include energy and resource powerhouses like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Iran. Despite Argentina's withdrawal under President Javier Milei, 13 more countries have joined as BRICS 'partners": from Indonesia and Nigeria to Cuba and Uzbekistan.
BRICS today accounts for 39 per cent of global GDP in PPP terms, 49.5 per cent of the world's population, 26 per cent of global trade, 44 per cent of global oil production, 38 per cent of natural gas, 78 per cent of coal and 72 per cent of rare earth mineral reserves.
The geopolitical and economic heft is undeniable. What matters now is how effective the group can be and where it leads.
BRICS is at a major crossroads with the entry of new members. India will play a substantial role in the integration of the new members, while also contributing to decisions on further expansion.
It can push substantive change in the grouping's outlook, driving cohesion and even helping it shed its anti-Western image and amplify its non-West focus instead, which has always been the way India has positioned itself at BRICS— non-West not anti-West.
India can take this opportunity to advance the interests of the Global South, push trade in national currencies amid geopolitical uncertainties, and greater trade ties overall navigating challenges like the tariff war waged by Trump and the rare earth crunch triggered by China.
Moreover, India will be ensuring that counter-terrorism forms part of the agenda without double standards. China has long attempted to dominate forums like the SCO—using its leverage to protect Pakistani interests, even at the cost of sincerity in counter-terrorism efforts. But BRICS is not SCO. India's relationships with countries like Brazil, South Africa, UAE, and even Russia act as a counterbalance to Chinese overreach.
At the summit, India is pushing for firm language on terrorism—specifically a condemnation of the recent Pahalgam attack. China and Pakistan blocked any such mention at the recent SCO summit. But India is confident BRICS will not make the same omission.
Dammu Ravi, Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said the BRICS declaration on terrorism will be 'to India's satisfaction."
Apart from counter-terrorism, India's push on other fronts is just as strong. Modi's agenda includes strengthening trade in national currencies, removing export controls among BRICS countries to facilitate smoother intra-group trade, amplifying Digital Public Infrastructure and cooperation in AI and cybersecurity, advancing the interests of the Global South, promoting a model of multi-alignment—India's signature foreign policy ethos—against bloc-based politics.
Unlike China or Russia, India does not view BRICS as a counterweight to the West. It sees it as a platform to amplify the voice of the Global South, not as a geopolitical sledgehammer. As EAM S. Jaishankar succinctly put it: 'Why the club? Because there was another club! It was called the G7 and you will not let anybody else into that club. So, we go and form our own club."
The Big Picture: A Multipolar Moment
India's growing stature in BRICS comes not from aggressive ambition, but from strategic consistency. It has maintained strategic autonomy and multi-alignment amidst bloc politics, built credible partnerships across the West and non-West and actively supported inclusive development and multilateral reform.
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India's rejection of total de-dollarisation, its resistance to rigid bloc politics, and its ability to be a bridge builder between the West and the non-West, are positions endorsed by many in the expanded BRICS family. Most new members and partners—from Indonesia to Nigeria—are not looking to pick sides in the new Cold War. They want voice, agency, and access—and India offers a template.
As China turns increasingly insular and confrontational, and Russia remains constrained by war and sanctions, India stands out. It's the only BRICS country that is a founding member, but also a regular G7 invitee. India carves a space for rational Global South priorities, while pushing back against bloc-based power politics that often paralyse global reform. As India takes the reins, the spotlight is firmly on what the BRICS transforms into and what it achieves as a result.
About the Author
Shubhangi Sharma
Shubhangi Sharma is News Editor - Special Projects at News18. She covers foreign affairs and geopolitics, and also keeps a close watch on the national pulse of India.
tags :
BRICS Summit finepoint Modi Brics summit pm narendra modi
Location :
New Delhi, India, India
First Published:
July 04, 2025, 11:58 IST
News opinion India's Grand Moment At BRICS Summit: Expansion, Cohesion & Global South Interests | Finepoint