After the BRICS summit, a question: Do multilateral institutions serve India's interest in a changing world order?
A weekly column, which offers not this-versus-that, but the best of both sides, to inform the debate
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Let us consider a possible side effect: Caste census could accentuate caste consciousness and cleavages. We should also ask why regular census enumeration of language and religion has not caused such and explosion.
Don’t blame BRICS for the curse of multipolarity. BRICS is not the reason for the relative decline of the US as a global power. The folly lies at the doorstep of a multi-decadal US policy, with active abetment by its Western allies, to outsource manufacturing to China and make it the manufacturing capital of the world. To make matters worse, the US-led West handed over the fate of a devastated global economy to China in the wake of the collapse of capitalism and the financial crisis of 2008. China was happy to play saviour. Neither BRICS nor India can be blamed for the rapid rise of a power that today believes it is poised to challenge US global hegemony.
In fact, India is at the receiving end of policies pursued by its Western partners. The lessons have not been learnt even now. Europe and the US are divided about whether and how much to shake off their interdependence with China. In fact, we are told there may not be any good solutions. China continues to ride the wave of the American and European economies. Its integration with them is far greater than with any BRICS member.
Unlike his predecessors, the current US President has launched a frontal attack on BRICS, with the threat of punitive tariffs. Some truths need to be told here. He has equally harsh words to say about the European Union, which he has said was formed to do damage to the United States. Japan and Korea have not been spared either. India’s largest and most important trade and technology partners are outside BRICS. If the wider world was satisfied with the current state of world affairs, BRICS would have been relegated to a fringe organisation. Its rapid expansion in the past couple of years, involving several well-known friends and partners of the US, needs introspection in Western capitals, not name calling.
A scenario where India walks out of BRICS is possible, because nothing is impossible. But would it be admitted into the G7 as a reward for switching sides? It has been made clear that in today’s world, democracy has lost its premium. It is no longer the glue that attracts the like minded. Military-ruled Pakistan is considered as great a nation as India, and as indispensable a partner for the US. Russia, on the other hand, must be shunned for being authoritarian. If the world has to be rebuilt using the alliance template of the last century, India should also be walking out of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and the RIC (Russia-India-China) and IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) groupings, which variously represent systemic challengers and the Global South.
The Global South is a reality, whichever way we define it. The question is how India sees itself in the larger comity of nations. For years, China relished being referred to as the “G77 plus China” in diplomatic jargon. India is embedded in the South in real terms as well as in philosophical terms. It would be delusional to think otherwise.
At the same time, India can barely be faulted for believing in itself and having a sense of its destiny in the long run. Its accretion of power is an inexorable process, unless we reconcile ourselves to a forever status of a post-colonial emerging nation and perpetual aspirant. In the transition phase of the current world order, India’s interests lie in working with the known US-led order, while being conscious that there are many things out of its control. For instance, the continuation of this order depends on how it is led, rather than the choices of its followers. At the same time, India will seek to grow as fast as it can.
Since the scale of transformation by itself is of epic proportion, affecting the lives of one-sixth of humanity, and additionally, given the track record of those who govern or misgovern the current order, India’s interface with the world will have to be cut across the board. India needs to be in as many thematic and geographical coalitions and groupings as necessary till it is made a genuine participant in the governance of international institutions. This is the essence of India’s case.
No doubt, organisations like BRICS and SCO have internal divisions, as do other, more honourable ones. Their achievements are modest. Members have different orientations and goals, and even bilateral differences. They have different geopolitical uses for these organisations. India is not exactly enamoured of the putative hegemon. It is hardly likely, for example, that India will facilitate the replacement of the US dollar with the Chinese yuan as an international reserve currency. The US, however, is not helping matters. By making the availability of the dollar scarce through forced reduction of trade surpluses against it and, in parallel, weaponising it as a geopolitical tool, it is driving even the best-intentioned nations to hedge against unpredictability. This is the new reality we live in. Understanding these complexities requires a new way of thinking.
The writer is convenor, NatStrat, former deputy national security adviser and ambassador
Let us consider a possible side effect: Caste census could accentuate caste consciousness and cleavages. We should also ask why regular census enumeration of language and religion has not caused such and explosion.
As an emerging power, India’s interests are arguably served best by aligning with multiple major powers, which according to conventional wisdom allows Delhi to limit its dependence on any one power and instead work with each on specific issues of common interest. India’s membership of multilateral institutions such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has been justified along the lines that these provide platforms to push for a more multipolar world order that limits the dominance of Western powers and West-led institutions.
Indeed, BRICS emerged as a group focused on challenging the norms that shaped multilateral economic institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. BRICS offered another avenue for India’s aspirations for global leadership as it, along with Brazil, China and Russia, negotiated a larger proportion of quotas and votes at these institutions. In recent years, as BRICS has expanded its membership, it has arguably provided India another platform to develop ties with countries in the Global South. One could argue that as the US under the Donald Trump administration pursues an unpredictable and more volatile foreign policy, it might be even more imperative for India to build ties with such institutions.
But does membership of BRICS really serve India’s interests? What specific foreign policy goals can it pursue through this? The international order is going through a transformation and the contours of the new order are not yet clear, and it is pertinent to ask whether China-dominated institutions such as BRICS will help India or drag it down.
I argue that while BRICS and the SCO still provide India platforms to push for multipolarity, they do not further many of its key foreign policy goals. In some cases, its interests might even be adversely affected through the collective positions taken. Clearly, China’s economic size, assertive foreign policy and dominance in these institutions limit the extent to which India can exert its influence and secure its interests.
China’s GDP, at $17.79 trillion, is nearly five times the size of India’s at $3.56 trillion. This economic might, along with China’s extensive trade and investment ties with other BRICS countries, allow it to exert greater political influence. At the BRICS summits, Beijing has used its leverage to promote goals such as de-dollarisation and expansion of the organisation’s membership. It has also used the venue to advocate for a larger role in global governance for itself. While India seeks to pursue some of these goals, it has not been able to further its interests through BRICS. The redistribution of IMF quotas in 2015 may have been the only exception. Even then, as BRICS countries banded together to reform global governance, China emerged as the clear winner as it was able to secure a deputy managing director position at the IMF.
While India seeks to expand its ties with countries in the Global South and portray itself as their leader, given the deep economic ties China enjoys with other BRICS countries, it is difficult for New Delhi to claim the leadership mantle while operating within the organisation. It might be easier for India to create a leadership narrative through its bilateral ties and in blocs where China is not present.
Additionally, India is deeply conflicted on de-dollarisation. While it has not been opposed to creating alternative payment mechanisms, it has enjoyed strong and increasing trade and investment ties with the US and has sought to limit its dependence on China. Trump’s threat of imposing additional tariffs on BRICS countries pursuing de-dollarisation puts India in a difficult position: Even though New Delhi was never in favour of the policy, it would need to clearly communicate that it is not retreating under threat.
The economic asymmetry within BRICS has also spilled over in the way Beijing has used the New Development Bank, the group’s flagship financial institution. While India has borrowed for its infrastructure projects, it is China that has been able to leverage its economic power to shape the discussion at the NDB around infrastructure and connectivity, which in turn bolsters its Belt and Road Initiative.
It is not only in the realm of economics that New Delhi has seemingly played second fiddle. More recently, to maintain BRICS cohesion, India signed a joint declaration that condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam but did not criticise Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism. India has fought long and hard to convince the world that Pakistan promotes and exports terrorism — the BRICS declaration went directly against India’s long-held position.
In the early years of the forum, BRICS membership likely gave India a larger profile in global governance by providing a mechanism for policy coordination by emerging economies. As China’s economic might has continued to grow and its foreign policy has increased in ambition and assertiveness, the forum today might constrain rather than further India’s foreign policy objectives. Indian leaders might be well advised to reevaluate BRICS’s utility.
The writer is associate professor, political science and international affairs, University of Mary Washington
