BRICS has finally found consensus, but the terms of that consensus reveal how divided the grouping remains.
On Saturday, leaders meeting in New Delhi unanimously adopted a 140-paragraph declaration after months of disagreement over the Iran war. The agreement calls for maximum restraint in the Middle East, protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, and diplomacy as the route to resolving conflicts.
Crucially, it avoids naming the United States, Israel, or Iran.
For India, which holds the BRICS chairmanship, getting all 11 members to sign the declaration is a diplomatic achievement. But it also illustrates the limits of BRICS as a geopolitical bloc.
The challenge was particularly acute because Iran and the UAE, both BRICS members, have been caught on opposing sides of the regional conflict. Iran has attacked targets in the Gulf, while the UAE maintains close security ties with Washington. Their foreign ministers had already failed to produce a consensual BRICS statement earlier this year.
India nevertheless helped bring the two sides into the same diplomatic room, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian meeting Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the summit’s sidelines.
That is the kind of BRICS India wants: influential enough to give emerging powers a larger voice, but flexible enough to accommodate countries whose strategic interests sharply diverge.
The same calculation is visible in the economic agenda.
Reducing dependence on the US dollar
China and Russia have pushed to reduce dependence on the dollar and develop alternative financial mechanisms. India has resisted the idea of a common BRICS currency, favoring more practical arrangements such as greater use of national currencies and improved cross-border payment systems. The New Delhi declaration did not endorse a single BRICS currency.
This matters because India has little interest in replacing American financial dominance with a China-centered alternative. New Delhi wants room to trade with Russia, maintain energy ties with Iran and the Gulf, and participate in BRICS while retaining access to American markets, Western capital, and technology.
That is strategic autonomy, not an anti-American strategy.
The Ukraine issue provides another revealing example. Unlike previous BRICS declarations, the New Delhi statement made no specific reference to the Russia-Ukraine war, a clear indication of how difficult it remains for the expanded grouping to reach common language on a conflict involving one of its founding members.
The contrast with Gaza is striking. The declaration devoted substantial attention to the Palestinian issue, reaffirmed support for Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution, and called for humanitarian access and an end to practices that could alter Gaza’s demographic or geographic character.
This is where the New Delhi summit matters for Israel.
Israel should not dismiss BRICS as an irrelevant talking shop. Nor should it assume that an expanded BRICS automatically constitutes a coherent anti-Israel alliance.
The summit demonstrates the opposite: the group contains countries with competing interests, and India in particular is resisting efforts to turn BRICS into a unified anti-Western geopolitical vehicle.
At the same time, Israel should recognize that BRICS diplomacy will increasingly create political pressure on Jerusalem.
The declaration’s treatment of Gaza, its emphasis on Palestinian statehood, and its criticism of actions affecting the occupied Palestinian territories demonstrate that Israel faces a growing diplomatic constituency outside the traditional Western framework.
India’s role is therefore especially important. New Delhi maintains close ties with Israel while also maintaining strategic relationships with Iran, the Gulf states, Russia, China and the United States. Its BRICS policy reflects the same multi-alignment that increasingly defines Indian foreign policy.
India is not trying to make BRICS a Western alliance. It is also resisting efforts to make it an anti-Western alliance.
The New Delhi declaration is consequently best understood as an Indian diplomatic success with clear limitations. BRICS can still produce consensus, but only through carefully calibrated language that avoids forcing members to choose sides on their most divisive geopolitical disputes.
For Israel and the US, that distinction matters. A stronger BRICS may challenge parts of the existing international order, but the New Delhi summit does not show the emergence of a unified alternative bloc.
It shows something more complicated: India is trying to ensure that BRICS becomes a powerful negotiating forum without allowing China, Russia, or any other member to turn it into a geopolitical instrument.
The writer is an India-based lawyer specializing in cross-border trade and investments, and a senior fellow with the South Asia Democratic Forum in Brussels.