06 July 2026, NIICE Commentary 12621
Pratima Sharma
What Happened in New Delhi
During the meeting on 14–15 May 2026 of the foreign ministers of the BRICS countries, a sizeable difference emerged for the first time in a meeting of a chair: none at all. But India rolled out an unusual diplomatic tactic: a "Chair's Statement and Outcome Document" that, instead of seeking to mask the differences, merely recorded differing views on the situation in the West Asia crisis. The biggest fault line was between Iran and the UAE, who had a public disagreement over Tehran's attacks on American facilities in the UAE. But there was a more muted fracture, too: one of the unidentified members expressed reservations even on the bloc's decades-long language on Gaza. India was not a part of either conflict, but did not have the means to solve them.
Forty days after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, BRICS was still yet to come up with a consensus statement on the war, by the time the ministers met in May. When asked about the deadlock, Iran's foreign minister only stated that he hoped "positions would change" ahead of the leaders' meeting in New Delhi in September. But the same document presented a different picture on economics, where opposition to unauthorised secondary sanctions and criticism of unilateral tariff measures were easier to come by, as were calls for development bank governance reform. That's what took place at the May meeting: deadlock in politics, a procedure change, and an economic statement that worked where the political one failed. The discussion that follows is of the meaning of what that means.
The three strands of scholarship on BRICS Cohesion
The May deadlock can be interpreted independently and so it can be misunderstood. It's easier to compare it with three sets of scholarship that have sought to understand what kind of grouping BRICS is.
The first strand sees BRICS primarily as a means of structuring power building, as the members use common platforms like the New Development Bank to develop bargaining power and advance towards a multipolar order without losing too much autonomy when it comes to their actions within the bloc. In this respect, it is not so much the members' agreement on the contested geopolitical questions that is relevant as survival of institutions and incremental increases in votes or funds.
The second line is more skeptical. It says cohesion amongst the members of the BRICS countries has been waning for years as the political and economic interests of the founding members have been at odds with each other, citing the increasing friction between India and China and the varying economic performance of the bloc as proof that the early 2010s feeling of common purpose has not stood the test of time. An analogous group of pieces on the larger bloc, after 2024, portrays BRICS as a "networked minilateralism," a growing constellation of issue-based projects that are not yet a political club. The mix of regime types and orientations among members tends to dilute the cohesiveness of the group, several of whom are also rivals, on just the questions which are most difficult to paper over — human rights and geopolitics foremost among them.
The third strand is focused on understanding the reasons for individual members joining or staying in BRICS without accepting its more political agenda. Indian perspectives on India's own posture have understood BRICS as a platform where New Delhi could meet with Beijing and Moscow as equals on economic and institutional issues without compromising on strategic independence, which is also a central tenet of Indian foreign policy — multi-alignment is no temporary strategy, but an integral part of the policy. In newer members like Turkey and the Gulf states, the picture is similar: states are not joining BRICS+ because they believe in the project, but simply to diversify their partnerships and maintain room for manoeuvre in the competition between China and the United States. It's the same formula India has always used, except with members who still have an active agenda on regional matters.
These three strands come together to signal a tension rather than three debates. The structural-power literature provides reasons why BRICS continues as an institution. That persistence goes hand in hand with political fragmentation, and the literature on cohesion-decline and minilateralism offers some explanations for this. The multi-alignment literature makes this point clear, and for more than one member state, including India, it makes a lot of sense not to even push for a solution. When all three dynamics are on the same agenda item at the same time, it looks like this in May 2026.
From Description to Interpretation
It's easy to see the May deadlock as a typical multilateral squabble, one in which coalitions clash, chairs handle it, and everybody lives in harmony. However, over time, normal friction tends to constrict, with repetition, through side payments or changing incentives. Narrowing didn't take place in New Delhi. It discovered a new problem to which to cling. It's not the Gulf crisis itself, but this pattern that makes it sound like a structurally imposed ceiling rather than a disagreement that will eventually be resolved. Prior to the 2024 expansion, BRICS had a fairly easy time keeping this tension off their agenda, as Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa were not belligerent against each other. That changed with the addition of Iran and the UAE to the mix: there's now a live military and diplomatic conflict in the room every time the bloc meets. India's inability as chair to achieve consensus was not because of a difference of views on Hormuz or on Gaza on India's part, but because other members of the bloc have directly conflicting foreign policy stances on the issue. The careful phrasing of the chair's statement — differing views among some members, with no reservations formally attributed even in the Gaza paragraph — makes it sound like a negotiation still in progress rather than something already resolved. It does not point to a method of convergence, because one does not yet exist within the expanded bloc's membership.
Though this may follow from the above empirical record, it is a claim that India has inherited from BRICS which it has never answered. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has often spoken about India's "strategic autonomy" and "multi-alignment" policies, which are based on avoiding alignment with any particular bloc. Throughout its tenure, India has never signed on to de-dollarisation as a joint BRICS effort, has been careful not to define BRICS as anti-Western, and has been steadily deepening the Quad partnership with the United States, Japan, and Australia. China's thirst is for something different. That gap hasn't closed in 15 years of summitry, which on this reading implies something stronger than the usual negotiating friction. A more conservative scholar might just as well claim that the absence of crisis is what has kept the gap from being tested. So far, the one data point is the May ministerial, which suggests that test has now arrived — but not that it has been passed.
Calibrated Ambiguity as a Symptom NOT a Solution
That's India's response to this dilemma, and it has earned a nickname in recent commentary: calibrated ambiguity. Much of the analysis about India's chairing of BRICS alongside its G7 outreach regards this as a demonstration of skill in bridge-building — that New Delhi's strategic independence allows it to engage both groupings at once. This is an image French President Macron has repeatedly gestured toward, describing India's BRICS chairship as an opportunity to "create bridges" between BRICS and the G7, arguing neither grouping should become an "anti" club to the other.
The above framing is worth another look. Calibrated ambiguity cannot solve the contradiction; it can only circumnavigate it, one issue at a time, for as long as that lasts. At the May meeting, Jaishankar was not only emphasizing the need for UN Security Council reform, but also governance of multilateral development banks and a rules-based WTO — a calculated move back to the register where BRICS can agree, since institutional reform is a demand shared by both the Global South and Global North coalitions, irrespective of differences of opinion with Washington and Beijing. The imbalance here is notable: there is consensus on sanctions and trade, but not on Hormuz or Gaza. BRICS can agree where the shared interest doesn't require taking sides; where it does, it cannot. This is a viable approach only as long as the crises remain manageable by deferral, and the crisis in West Asia indicates that the price of deferral is increasing.
A Consensus Forum Is Not a Geopolitical Bloc
India's chairmanship shouldn't be judged on whether India can resolve BRICS's internal dichotomy, because India was never the one who had to resolve it. It depends on who is in the room — India's chairmanship is a matter of procedure, not structure. Nor should the survival of the bloc's institutions be confused with "political cohesion." BRICS might well survive this rupture and the next, but only as more and more agenda items are collectively ruled "too political." This is one way to read the 2024 expansion: it created a relatively benign structural strain, and each new member since has introduced a new operational crisis.
In other words, aside from an unwritten, non-binding consensus on procedures and processes, BRICS may be settling into a more limited role than its founders envisioned — a forum for like-minded nations to agree on trade rules, sanctions, and development financing, rather than a geopolitical alliance capable of adopting collective positions on the wars that matter most to its members. This is what the networked-minilateralism literature already suggests, and the May meeting in New Delhi is the clearest empirical example observed to date. If September's summit in New Delhi yields a real joint communiqué — or another chair's statement — it won't be a reflection of New Delhi's diplomatic prowess. It will say less about a transition from potential counterweight to the Western-led order than about whether the club has already, quietly, completed a different transition: from an aspiring political club to a standing but depoliticised clearing-house for whatever issues its members can agree to call uncontroversial.
Pratima Sharma is a Research Intern at NIICE and she is currently pursuing her Master's of Arts in Defence Studies at Central University of Gujarat, India.
