Why Brics Delhi Summit was a diplomatic victory for India | 5 big points

India steered Brics nations to adopt the New Delhi Declaration despite deep splits. India got the backing on the Pahalgam terror attack and kept the bloc from turning overtly anti-West. It also turned New Delhi into a stage for the Iran-UAE meeting. Here's India's Brics success explained in five points.

For India, the real test at the Brics Summit was whether a bloc pulled in different directions by wars and sharply different positions on West Asia could still find common ground. Another big test was if New Delhi could prevent the Brics from becoming an anti-US bloc given the joining of forces by China and Russia.

The 18th Brics Summit was held against the backdrop of two active wars involving members of the grouping. Just four months earlier, Brics foreign ministers had failed to produce a joint statement in New Delhi because of differences over the Middle East.

The failure to produce a joint statement at the foreign ministers' meeting in Rio de Janeiro in April 2025 had already exposed the challenge of finding consensus in an expanded Brics, which had grown from five members until 2023 to 11 by 2025. The expanded grouping brought more divergent geopolitical interests to the table.

Yet, on September 12 (Saturday), the leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration by consensus. India was also able to get the bloc to put its collective weight behind the condemnation of the Pahalgam terror attack, while keeping the larger Brics agenda focussed on the concerns of the Global South rather than turning it into an explicitly anti-West platform.

Economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs described the summit as a success, saying the declaration showed that "the Brics nations are taking their place in the world scene". Comparing it with India's G20 presidency, Sachs said New Delhi had again managed to build consensus "even at a very difficult time".

Notably, in three days — the eve and the two days of Brics Summit — Prime Minister Narendra Modi held 15 formal bilateral meetings with foreign leaders.

The diplomatic test for New Delhi was to steer a diverse grouping amid two active wars, trade tensions between nations, and geopolitical divisions, without allowing those differences to derail the bloc. On that measure, the Delhi summit gave India five significant wins. Let's have a look at them.

1. NEW DELHI BECAME A PLATFORM FOR IRAN-UAE MEETING

The most immediate challenge facing the summit was the war in the Middle East.

Iran and the UAE arrived at the Brics table with sharply divergent positions over the conflict in the Middle East. Since the US-Israel-Iran war began in late February, Iranian missile and drone attacks have targeted US military assets in the UAE. The two countries had already emerged as a major fault line inside the grouping.

In May, the Brics foreign ministers' meeting in New Delhi ended without a joint statement, with differences over the Middle East preventing consensus. Iran had wanted stronger language on the US-Israeli war, while the UAE had objected to positions it regarded as unacceptable.

That made a leaders' declaration in September far from certain.

Harsh V Pant, Vice President of Studies and Foreign Policy at the Observer Research Foundation, had warned before the summit that the Iran-UAE tensions could again prevent a joint declaration.

The breakthrough was visible not only in the declaration but also in the diplomatic optics.

Iran and the UAE both signed on to the Brics statement calling for restraint in the Middle East. Then, on the sidelines of the Brics Summit, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in what Reuters described as the highest-level meeting between the two countries since the conflict began.

India's diplomatic win, therefore, was finding a way to prevent the divide between Iran and the UAE from becoming a wider Brics divide and making New Delhi a stage for an Iran-UAE meeting.

2. INDIA RESTORED CONSENSUS, MAKING IT AN INSTITUTIONAL WIN FOR BRICS

The second and perhaps more consequential achievement was institutional.

Brics had already demonstrated that its expansion had made consensus harder. The April 2025 foreign ministers' meeting in Rio de Janeiro failed to produce a joint communique. Brazil, then the Brics president, issued a chair's statement instead.

The Delhi summit therefore came with a credibility question hanging over it. Can, what couldn't be done in 2025 and earlier in 2026 be done at the Delhi Summit? Yes, it was done.

The New Delhi Declaration not only recorded consensus on geopolitical questions but also contained a wide range of institutional and economic commitments.

It endorsed continued work on global governance reform, development finance, trade, digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), supply chains and other areas of cooperation. The declaration also explicitly commended India's Brics presidency and thanked New Delhi for hosting the summit.

That matters because a summit declaration is more than a ceremonial document for a grouping that operates largely through consensus. Its adoption demonstrates that disagreements can be contained without making the institution itself irrelevant.

Foreign policy expert Harsh V Pant had identified this as a critical test before the summit, saying that Brics' credibility was at stake because "many countries are looking at Brics with a degree of optimism". Failure to produce a joint statement, he had warned, could make that optimism fade.

India's achievement, therefore, demonstrated that an increasingly fractious grouping could still produce a common document.

3. PAHALGAM ATTACK CONDEMNATION GAVE INDIA A SIGNIFICANT DIPLOMATIC WIN

Another important outcome for India was the explicit reference to the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack.

The New Delhi Declaration says Brics members "condemn in the strongest terms" the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed and many more injured. It reiterates the grouping's commitment to combating terrorism, including cross-border movement of terrorists, terror financing and safe havens. It also calls for "zero tolerance" towards terrorism and rejects double standards in counter-terrorism.

Sana Hashmi, an expert on China, the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan, highlighted this in a post on X.

The declaration does not name Pakistan. But it does specifically identify the Pahalgam attack and collectively condemn it as a terrorist attack. The language also says that "all those involved in terrorist activities and their supporters must be held accountable and brought to justice in accordance with relevant national and international law".

That distinction is very important.

The outcome was particularly significant given China's presence in Brics and its close relationship with Pakistan. The declaration allowed New Delhi to isolate the issue of terrorism from the wider geopolitical disagreements within the grouping.

It also fit India's broader attempt to make counter-terrorism a central part of its diplomatic agenda. Rather than presenting Pahalgam solely as an India-Pakistan issue, New Delhi placed it within Brics' existing language on terrorism, financing, safe havens and international accountability.

4. INDIA PREVENTED BRICS FROM BECOMING ANTI-US BLOC

The fourth achievement was more subtle.

India used its Brics presidency to amplify the concerns of developing countries, but did not turn the grouping into an explicitly anti-US or anti-Western alliance.

The declaration calls for reform of global governance and greater representation for emerging markets and developing economies. It backs reform of the UN Security Council (UNSC) and says China and Russia support the aspirations of India and Brazil to play a greater role in the United Nations, including the Security Council. It also calls for greater representation of developing countries in institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

At the same time, the document does criticise unilateral sanctions and protectionist measures. It condemns unilateral coercive measures that are contrary to international law and highlights their impact on development, health and food security. It also supports a more open, equitable and rules-based multilateral trading system.

Russia has faced some of the most crippling sanctions from the US and is fighting a war with Ukraine to prevent Nato from reaching its doorsteps. China has been competing against the US for global supremacy in trade and influence. Both Moscow and Beijing would have exerted unidirectional pressure to turn Brics into an anti-West bloc.

Former diplomat Veena Sikri on Saturday described India's position as "non-West" rather than "anti-West". She said, "We are not anti-West; we want to live as one world."

The Delhi declaration reflects that balance.

5. INDIA STEERED A DIVERSE BLOC THROUGH A CATACLYSMIC YEAR

The final achievement is perhaps the broadest one.

Brics in 2026 is not the Brics of its original five members. Its expansion has brought together countries with very different political systems, economic interests and strategic partnerships. The challenge became sharper this year because two members were directly caught up in major wars.

Russia remains at war with Ukraine, while Iran has been at the centre of the escalating conflict with the United States and Israel. The wars have had consequences far beyond the battlefield, affecting energy markets, shipping, supply chains, food security and inflation.

Yet the declaration managed to accommodate these competing interests.

On West Asia, it called for maximum restraint and diplomacy while explicitly recognising "our respective national positions". On broader international disputes, it endorsed dialogue, consultation and diplomacy.

On economic issues, it focussed heavily on resilience, development, supply chains, technology and finance.

In a year when war, economic fragmentation and great-power rivalry threatened to pull Brics apart, New Delhi managed to help reach consensus and secure outcomes important to the Global South. India has shown that Brics can remain functional despite profound differences.

The next test will be whether China can sustain the consensus India built, as Beijing takes over the presidency for 2027.

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