By TRH Op-Ed Desk
Major General S B Asthana says India can turn BRICS into a practical platform for Global South cooperation, but must prevent the grouping from becoming an anti-Western bloc.
New Delhi, August 22, 2026 — As India prepares to host the BRICS Summit next month amid growing geopolitical turbulence, the grouping’s expanding economic and demographic weight is confronting an equally significant challenge — whether it can convert its collective influence into a functioning architecture for the Global South.
Major General (Dr) S B Asthana, geopolitical and strategic affairs commentator, has argued that India’s 2026 BRICS Chairmanship presents New Delhi with an opportunity to move the grouping beyond declarations and towards practical cooperation on development, technology, finance and global governance reform.
“BRICS has the numbers. India has the bridge. Can India build the architecture?” Asthana wrote in his recent analysis on BRICS.
BRICS enters its third decade at a time when the international system is undergoing major strategic changes, with geopolitical rivalry, economic fragmentation, technological competition and weakening confidence in post-World War II institutions reshaping global affairs.
Asthana said the expansion of BRICS has given the grouping “unprecedented demographic, economic and geopolitical weight” but has simultaneously exposed its internal contradictions.
The grouping now brings together countries with different political systems, economic structures and strategic interests. Its members include democracies and authoritarian states, energy exporters and importers, regional rivals and countries pursuing greater strategic autonomy.
India’s balancing act
According to Asthana, India’s principal challenge during its BRICS Chairmanship will be to reconcile these competing interests without allowing the grouping to become an anti-Western coalition.
“India’s challenge is not to choose between the West and BRICS. It is to shape a multipolar system in which both can coexist,” he said in his analysis.
This places India’s strategic autonomy at the centre of its BRICS diplomacy.
New Delhi simultaneously engages with BRICS, the G20, the Quad and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, giving India a unique position among major powers to engage across geopolitical divides.
Asthana believes this positioning could allow India to act as a bridge between the Global South and developed economies while resisting efforts to turn BRICS into a rigid geopolitical bloc.
“BRICS should evolve as a platform that enhances strategic and economic resilience without getting into bloc politics,” Asthana wrote.
From economic acronym to Global South platform
BRICS originated in 2001 as an economic concept covering Brazil, Russia, India and China. It acquired political momentum with its first summit in 2009 and expanded with South Africa’s inclusion in 2010.
The creation of the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement in 2014 marked a further shift towards institution-building.
The subsequent expansion of BRICS across Asia, Africa, Latin America and West Asia has substantially increased the grouping’s reach.
Asthana said the expansion reflects dissatisfaction among developing countries with global institutions that are perceived as insufficiently representative of contemporary economic and geopolitical realities.
At the same time, he cautioned that BRICS’ diversity could become a constraint if competing national interests overwhelm areas of common ground.
“These contradictions are not weaknesses alone — BRICS derives much of its legitimacy precisely because it accommodates political diversity rather than ideological uniformity,” Asthana wrote.
Why the BRICS expansion matters
The expansion has also changed the strategic character of BRICS.
Countries from West Asia, Africa and other regions are looking towards the grouping for greater access to development finance, technology partnerships, trade opportunities and a stronger voice in global institutions.
Asthana argues that many countries are attracted to BRICS not necessarily because they share an ideological position with China or Russia, but because they want greater strategic autonomy.
For India, this creates an opportunity to make the BRICS agenda more development-oriented.
Focus on technology, finance and resilience
Asthana’s analysis points to several areas where India could seek tangible outcomes during its chairmanship.
These include digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence, financial technology, resilient supply chains, climate finance, food security, health resilience, disaster management and clean energy.
The 2026 BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting had already highlighted several of these areas, including trade facilitation, digital public infrastructure, AI governance, supply-chain resilience and climate finance.
Financial cooperation, however, is likely to remain one of the most politically sensitive issues.
BRICS members have promoted greater use of national currencies in bilateral trade, but Asthana’s analysis points towards a pragmatic approach rather than an immediate push for a common BRICS currency.
For India, expanding local-currency settlements and improving payment interoperability could offer more realistic gains than attempting to construct a common currency without the necessary monetary and fiscal integration.
The China factor
India’s BRICS strategy cannot be separated from its relationship with China.
While New Delhi and Beijing share an interest in a more representative global order and cooperate within BRICS, their strategic rivalry remains a major constraint on deeper institutional integration.
China’s economic weight within the grouping also raises questions about whether an expanded BRICS could eventually become disproportionately influenced by Beijing.
India’s task will therefore involve strengthening BRICS without allowing the grouping to become an instrument of any single country’s geopolitical agenda.
Why BRICS should not become anti-Western
Asthana argues that BRICS was not originally conceived as an anti-Western project.
Its core objective, he notes, has been greater representation for developing countries, South-South cooperation and reform of existing global governance structures.
That distinction is increasingly important as tensions over sanctions, trade restrictions, technology controls and the international financial system intensify.
“The goal is neither confrontation with existing institutions nor their replacement — BRICS should be non-Western, but not anti-Western,” Asthana wrote.
For India, this could become one of the defining principles of its BRICS presidency.
New Delhi has little incentive to transform BRICS into another geopolitical bloc when its own foreign policy is based on maintaining multiple partnerships.
India’s opportunity
Asthana believes India’s ability to engage simultaneously with Russia, China, the United States, Europe, the wider Global South and the Indo-Pacific gives New Delhi a potentially unique role within BRICS.
The challenge, however, is to turn that diplomatic positioning into concrete institutional outcomes.
The success of India’s BRICS Chairmanship, therefore, may not be determined by the rhetoric of the forthcoming summit but by whether the grouping can deliver practical cooperation.
For India, the strategic objective would be to strengthen BRICS as a platform for cooperative multipolarity rather than confrontation.
With the summit now only a month away, New Delhi faces a limited window to build consensus among members with widely differing interests.
The larger question, as Asthana’s analysis puts it, is whether India can turn BRICS’ enormous numbers and growing influence into an architecture capable of delivering meaningful change for the Global South.
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