As BRICS 2026 begins, India braces for a diplomatic minefield

‘All eyes are on India right now,’ wrote The Diplomat. The reference was to the BRICS summit in New Delhi (12-13 September). It went on to observe: ‘Leading the group today is a diplomatic minefield’. Such a state of affairs is unfortunately as much a result of Narendra Modi’s misguided foreign policy as developments beyond his control.

BRICS began in 2009 as BRIC—Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined the consortium in 2010 and attended its first meeting in 2011. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were admitted as full members in 2024—despite India’s objections—and Indonesia in 2025. The same year, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam were designated partner countries. Together, BRICS accounts for 40 per cent of global GDP and 49.5 per cent of the world’s population.  

As long as India under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh maintained its post-Cold War position of multi-alignment, India commanded respect. This changed when Modi leapt into the lap of the US and turned India’s foreign policy on its head by getting into bed with Israel—a pariah for other BRICS members.

On most international issues of note, ‘Modi-fied’ India was out of step with other BRICS states, most conspicuously on Israel’s war crimes in Palestine and its unprovoked attacks on Iran. Far from condemning Israel in any forum, India has stayed in Israel’s corner—even supplying it weapons—which makes it a conspicuous outlier in BRICS.

The BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in May, with India in the chair, dispersed without a joint statement and was deemed a failure. New Delhi has been worried about the BRICS summit going the same way, and Modi’s presence at the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) summit in Kyrgyzstan at the beginning of September should be seen in this light. The SCO is really China’s baby, and by taking himself there, Modi may have clinched President Xi Jinping’s presence at the BRICS summit, though China kept India guessing till the eleventh hour. Xi hasn’t visited India since 2019 and, in fact, skipped the G20 summit in Delhi in 2023.

As the host, India’s objective is to ensure the presence of all member countries. But doubts linger if Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman will attend. In early August, Saudi Arabia signed the Makkah Pact, a NATO-type military agreement with Pakistan and Turkey, with potential threats from Iran, Israel and India in mind. 

The Bishkek Declaration at the end of the SCO summit saw member nations reiterating ‘the SCO’s previously stated position condemning military strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. Modi was among the 10 who signed the document. Neither Modi nor the Indian ministry of external affairs (MEA) had hitherto uttered a word to censure the patently unacceptable conduct of the US and Israel towards Iran since February. 

Modi was also party to the SCO statement opposing ‘unilateral coercive measures that are contrary to the UN Charter and other norms of international law, [and] the rules and principles of the World Trade Organization’—namely, America’s anti-Iran ‘Operation Economic Outcast’.  

Modi met Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the summit. This was seen as another attempt to assuage Iran’s feelings. Not only has the Modi government sided with Israel in this war, it also buckled under US pressure and pulled out of its obligations vis-à-vis Iran’s Chabahar port, in which India had made substantial investments.

Iran’s official readout quoted Modi as telling Pezeshkian that ‘during the difficult period we have recently experienced, we sought to maintain and preserve our cooperation and communications with Iran’. The ‘difficult period’ was of his own making, having submitted meekly to the diktats of ‘my friend Doland’ and making no secret of his love for Netanyahu and his criminal regime.

Iran reported that Modi told his interlocutor, “I agree with you that there are those who see their interests in war…” Could this be interpreted as (guarded) criticism of the US and Israel? Pezeshkian, in turn, “expressed appreciation for New Delhi’s support and cooperation”. For India to indicate any form of ‘support and cooperation’ towards Iran is a departure from its posture since the beginning of the conflict.

The only reliable way to conclude that Modi is pivoting away from the sphere of US-Israeli influence will be to see India’s actions after the BRICS summit, when we might find out if Modi was merely trying to placate China and Iran at the SCO to try and ensure that the BRICS summit does not bomb. ‘As New Delhi enters BRICS time, wrote China’s Global Times, ‘the world will watch keenly what will come out of the meeting’.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the media: “We have no doubt that the summit will be successful,” which is an indication that Russia will once again assist India—as it did at the Delhi G20 in 2023—to work out a unanimous joint statement, possibly in lieu of a soft mention of Russia’s war with Ukraine.     

South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa has confirmed his attendance, despite his country’s open and vocal denunciation of Israel’s war crimes and its genocidal war in Gaza. South Africa’s high commissioner in Delhi Anil Sooklal has affirmed “India is going to have a fruitful summit on a number of fronts.”  

As for Brazil, it has stood with South Africa vis-à-vis Netanyahu’s war crimes and lent its weight to South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Both nations have reservations about Modi’s majoritarianism and contempt for democracy and yet may help forge a consensus on West Asia.

The assessment in Indian foreign service circles is that the summit is a challenge, given the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine and the war in West Asia. Modi is gambling that the BRICS summit will not displease Trump, who would be delighted if the group loses its way. With Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the mix, the BRICS statement cannot be as pro-Iran as the one issued at the SCO, and yet the BRICS resolution will have to nod at the situation in West Asia.   

The MEA catchline for the summit—‘Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability’—is a known tic of the Modi government to find acronyms, but in the prevailing circumstances, it looks like an attempt to deflect attention from more intractable issues that could scupper the summit.

Ashis Ray was editor-at-large of CNN, and is the author of The Trial that Shook Britain. More of his writing here