When Jim O’Neill, then-chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, coined the term BRIC in a 2001 research paper, he was referring to the collective potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China to influence the world economy. By 2006, the four countries started meeting informally, before setting up BRIC in 2009 and expanding it to include South Africa in 2010. There was optimism that BRICS would usher in an alternate pathway to global governance and emerge as a credible voice of the Global South.
By 2021, O’Neill was of the opinion that the five BRICS countries had proven incapable of uniting as a meaningful global force. The group’s inability to take a unified stand on major issues was a principal reason for O’Neill’s conclusion. The ambiguous stance of BRICS and its current chair, India, regarding the ongoing war in Iran serves to reinforce that judgement. Even expanded, with 10 members drawn from across continents now, including Iran, the group remains unable to develop substantive policies on major global issues. It is thus surprising that BRICS has remained intact without splitting or collapsing.
On April 14, Iranian Ambassador to India Mohammad Fathali said that India could play an important role as the chair of BRICS in fostering dialogue and regional stability. His comments come ahead of an upcoming BRICS meeting. Fathali’s statement was an expression of hope and a nudge to India to use its good offices to impress upon the United States and Israel to end the war. New Delhi, so far, has dilly-dallied in making any such moves, although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has remained in touch with U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through periodic phone calls.
Tehran, which joined BRICS in January 2024, has called upon the group to take a stronger stance on the war. But Iranian drone and missile attacks on the Gulf states in general and the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in particular, have created a curious dilemma for the group and its chair. The UAE, like Iran, has been a formal member of BRICS since early 2024. Saudi Arabia hasn’t joined the group, but attends its summits as a guest or partner country. Neither has responded to Iran’s attacks militarily. BRICS as a collective should be able to protect the interests of the UAE and Saudi Arabia as well as those of Iran. But doing so is a diplomatic impossibility at this juncture, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia being close partners of the United States.
Even with this complex geopolitical backdrop, India’s own position, often referred to as a “balancing act,” can be characterized as silence on the larger strategic questions. Since the start of the war, Indian leadership has spoken to the leaders of Iran, the U.S., Israel, and the Gulf countries. But many of these conversations are about ensuring the safety of its own citizens in the Middle Eastern region. India’s close relationship with Israel makes it a herculean task for New Delhi to pose as a neutral actor. Not surprisingly, New Delhi, even as the chair of BRICS, has done very little to position itself as a leader of the bloc, or call for peace and cessation of violence affecting its member states.
This is not the first time that BRICS has faced challenges in reaching a unified position, particularly when one of its members is involved in a conflict. For instance, in 2022 India distanced itself from China’s attempts to rally support for Russia regarding the Ukraine war, resulting in a watered-down BRICS statement. India’s “multi-aligned” approach was a strategic effort to maintain strong ties with Western countries while also supporting its partnership with Russia, all the while avoiding a direct endorsement of narratives dominated by China. The ongoing rivalry between India and China within the group, including India’s consistent concern that Beijing is attempting to dominate BRICS and use it as a tool for its foreign policy, has impinged on the effectiveness of the group.
Bilateral relationships or geopolitical alignments casting a shadow on a multilateral forum isn’t a rare occurrence. For instance, the bilateral trade war between the United States and China has affected the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. The same dispute more or less crippled the World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body when the U.S. began blocking the appointment of judges, leading to an impasse in global trade dispute settlements.
Nevertheless, BRICS appears to be more riddled with internal conflicts than most multilateral groups. The goal of creating a unified BRICS currency remains elusive, as does the establishment of a comprehensive security framework. Despite a shared ambition to reform global governance, BRICS has consistently failed to issue a joint statement regarding permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). There is also a lack of consensus on whether BRICS should position itself as an anti-Western bloc — supported by Russia and China — or as a platform for reforming the current global rules, a perspective championed by India and Brazil.
Disagreements among members even led Brazil to block Venezuela’s membership, despite support for Caracas from Russia. This could be interpreted as a sign of a vibrant internal democratic process within the bloc. However, for an organization that has been active for 17 years, the lack of clear direction is more indicative of its challenges and shortcomings. In fact, beyond creating the BRICS Bank (formally known as the New Development Bank), the group’s achievements have been few.
New Delhi has positioned itself as the “bridge builder” — the primary link between the established Western order (the Global North) and the rising powers and developing countries of the Global South. Modi, addressing the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro in July 2025, said that India would give a “new form” to BRICS during its presidency. He proposed redefining BRICS as “Building Resilience and Innovation for Cooperation and Sustainability.” And he affirmed that India would advance BRICS with a focus on “humanity first.”
Beyond such optics, not much has been achieved. Given its constraints, New Delhi is bound to discover that the bloc’s performance has remained, as O’Neill’s revised assessment defined it — “dismal.” However, as a chair, India has a unique opportunity to provide direction and build synergy among member countries to reshape the utility of this bloc in the present era of geopolitical contestation and turbulence.