BRICS after Rio: A promising but challenging future in a turbulent world

India wishes to be a valuable bridge between the Global South and the developed world with her presence at the Quad, Indo-Pacific and G-20. Obviously, India will have to do a tightrope walk on several fronts.

- SURENDRA KUMAR

The BRICS, whose first summit was held in 2009 with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, and which became BRICS with the addition of South Africa in 2010, has further expanded in 2024-25 with the admission of Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates as full members.

Besides, it has welcomed Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nigeria, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Uganda, and Uzbekistan as new BRICS partner countries. Another 30 countries, including Türkiye, are waiting to join it.

BRICS, accounting for 50% of the world's population, 40% GDP, and 25% of global trade, is on the move. In the prevailing disrupted world, it generates two opposing reactions: unease, suspicion, and resentment in the US and its Western allies, but optimism and assertion in the developing world that views it as a potent voice of the Global South.

The US remains the world's most dominant power, and the current occupant of the White House shakes up his friends and foes alike with his unilateral and unpredictable trade and economic policies; he even bombed Iranian nuclear sites in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, in violation of international laws. Nonetheless, he would prefer to focus on his domestic priorities like MAGA and Big Beautiful Bill rather than getting bogged down in international quagmires.

There is growing awareness in the countries of the Global South that they get short shrift in the decision-making and face double standards thanks to the control of the leading international institutions by the North. As a newspaper editorial recently said, "Herein lies a role for the BRICS to reshape itself as a counterweight to the nations of the North and hold them accountable for their actions." A dispassionate reality check will put a big question mark against this suggestion.