When the leaders of an eleven-nation grouping representing nearly half of humanity and close to forty per cent of global output walk into Bharat Mandapam on September 12 and 13, they will arrive in a country that has quietly earned the right to set the terms of the conversation.
The 18th BRICS Summit marks the end of India’s fourth chairship of the grouping and its first since the bloc expanded well beyond its founding five. The theme chosen for the year, “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, is not a diplomatic pleasantry. It fairly describes what India has done over the past twelve months at the head of the table, and it points towards a BRICS that looks less like a talking shop and more like a working partnership.
Twenty years ago, the foreign ministers of what was then BRIC met for the first time on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly. What began as an idea to give rising economies a fairer hearing within the post-war financial order has grown into something considerably larger and more consequential.
India translated green growth into concrete infrastructure through the Global Value Chains Action Plan (2026-2030) and the Logistics Supply Chain Cooperation Framework. Programmes like the Voluntary Principles for Climate Resilient Urban Infrastructure and Urban Mobility Hub provide practical tools for developing cities
India’s chairship arrived at exactly the moment the anniversary sought reflection on what the grouping should become next. Few countries are as well placed to answer that question. India brought the credibility of having chaired the G20 through a difficult year, the experience of running the Voice of Global South Summit, and a demonstrated ability to turn abstract solidarity into tangible outcomes. That track record is the real source of New Delhi’s leverage this week, more than any single line in a communique.
The clearest evidence of that leverage lies in what India has already built into the chairship, rather than in what it hopes to negotiate this weekend. The Global Value Chains Action Plan for 2026 to 2030 gives BRICS members a concrete roadmap for deepening trade connectivity and manufacturing integration, rather than another aspirational statement.
The proposed Logistics Supply Chain Cooperation Framework speaks directly to the vulnerabilities exposed by recent years of disrupted shipping and stressed ports across every developing economy at this table. Under the sustainability pillar, the Voluntary Principles for Climate Resilient Urban Infrastructure, along with the proposed Urban Research and Knowledge Network and Urban Mobility Hub, translate the fashionable language of green growth into institutions that cities across the Global South can actually use. This is the difference between hosting a summit and shaping an agenda.
Leveraging platforms like UPI and the broader digital architecture, India proposed the BRICS Digital Public Infrastructure Repository to share governance software globally. Paired with the BRICS CONNECT skills initiative; this provides a scalable development model for emerging economies
India’s success with digital public infrastructure gives it leverage that money alone cannot buy. The Aadhaar identity system, the Unified Payments Interface and the broader India Stack have become reference points for policymakers across Asia, Africa and Latin America seeking to leapfrog decades of infrastructure debt in a single generation.
The proposed BRICS Digital Public Infrastructure Repository, designed to share and test these solutions across member economies, is India’s offer of its own governance software to the rest of the grouping.
Paired with BRICS CONNECT, the labour market and skills initiative unveiled under the cooperation pillar, and a growing innovation agenda around artificial intelligence and financial technology, this summit gives India a chance to export a development model that other rising economies find far more relatable than anything on offer from the older industrial powers.
The New Development Bank tells a similar story in financial terms. India has become the Bank’s largest borrower, with lending rising from roughly nine billion dollars to close to ten billion dollars within a matter of months. The Bank’s regional office in Gujarat has quietly become a genuine operational hub, rather than a symbolic outpost.
As the New Development Bank’s largest borrower, India utilises its position to advocate for faster disbursements, local-currency settlement and streamlined project pipelines. The operational expansion of the NDB’s Gujarat regional office reinforces India’s role as a primary stakeholder driving institutional reform
That gives New Delhi a standing to press for exactly the kind of reforms that smaller and newer BRICS members want to see: clearer project pipelines, faster disbursement and greater lending in local currencies, including the rupee. India is not asking the Bank to serve its interests from the outside. It is one of the Bank’s largest stakeholders, asking it to work better for everyone.
None of this leverage would matter if India could not also manage the delicate diplomacy of hosting a grouping that includes both Beijing and Moscow while remaining close to Washington, Brussels and its Quad partners.
This is precisely where India’s chairship has been most impressive. New Delhi has resisted pressure to turn BRICS financial cooperation into an openly anti-dollar project, opting instead for the more patient and durable language of financial resilience, local-currency trade and interoperable payment systems.
That restraint is not hesitation. It is the discipline of a country that understands the difference between a grouping useful to the Global South and one useful only to its largest member. India’s multi-alignment diplomacy, tested and refined across the Quad, the G20 and its bilateral ties with every major power, is exactly the skill this summit calls for, and it is a skill few other BRICS members possess in equal measure.
Navigating complex geopolitical dynamics among member states, India kept the bloc focused on constructive financial resilience and local-currency trade rather than anti-Western rhetoric. This pragmatic approach reinforces New Delhi’s unique ability to bridge connections across global powers and partner nations
There is also a quieter but equally important form of leverage on display this week: India’s ability to convene. Reports ahead of the summit describe New Delhi’s effort to secure what commentators have called a big family photo, a strong turnout of member and partner leaders that signals the grouping’s continuing relevance and India’s own convening power within it.
A well-attended, well-organised summit, following a year in which India hosted well over a hundred ministerial and sectoral meetings across the country, is itself a demonstration of institutional capacity that money and rhetoric cannot substitute for. It tells every participating government, and every government watching from outside, that India can run a complex multilateral process to a professional standard.
The horizon this chairship opens is not merely the next twelve months of BRICS business. It is the possibility of a grouping that finally lives up to its founding ambition: a genuine platform for reforming global governance, financing development on terms the Global South actually needs, and building the digital and physical infrastructure that half the world’s population still lacks.
India’s fourth chairship, arriving at the twentieth anniversary of the grouping’s founding, gives New Delhi a rare opportunity to be remembered not merely as a host but as the chair that moved BRICS from promise to practice.
Having managed over a hundred sectoral meetings leading up to the summit, India demonstrated substantial administrative and diplomatic capacity. This convening power showcases New Delhi’s ability to run complex multilateral processes while shaping an agenda tailored to the Global South
As the flags go up at Bharat Mandapam this weekend, the story that deserves telling is not that of a rising power waiting for permission to lead. It is the story of a country that has spent a year converting its economic weight, diplomatic balance and development success into the kind of leverage that reshapes an institution from within.
India did not simply inherit the BRICS chair in 2026. It used it, and the new horizon that phrase promises now looks considerably closer than it did a year ago.
The writer, a PVSM, AVSM, VSM has had an illustrious career spanning nearly four decades. A distinguished Armoured Corps officer, he has served in various prestigious staff and command appointments including Commander Independent Armoured Brigade, ADG PP, GOC Armoured Division and GOC Strike 1. The officer retired as DG Mechanised Forces in December 2017 during which he was the architect to initiate process for reintroduction of Light Tank and Chairman on the study on C5ISR for Indian Army. Subsequently he was Consultant MoD/OFB from 2018 to 2020. He is also a reputed defence analyst, a motivational speaker and prolific writer on matters of military, defence technology and national security. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily carry the views of Raksha Anirveda
