India’s BRICS Play: Putin’s In, Xi’s Next, How India Is Betting On Everyone Without Betting Everything

What began as BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India and China, has evolved into an 11-member grouping spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. South Africa joined in 2010, followed by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Indonesia. Today, BRICS represents nearly 50 per cent of the world's population and about 40 per cent of global GDP, while intra-BRICS merchandise exports reached around $1.17 trillion in 2024.

For India, BRICS is increasingly about options. New Delhi already has bilateral trade and strategic relationships with Russia, China, Iran, the Gulf, Africa and Latin America. The grouping puts many of these relationships in one room, allowing India to pursue trade, investment, technology, energy, logistics and supply-chain cooperation together. India's goods trade with the 11-member BRICS bloc reached about $417.5 billion in FY2025-26.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has pushed for greater market access, fewer non-tariff barriers, stronger supply chains and linked payment systems, including greater use of local currencies. This could become particularly useful if Western markets or major global trade routes are disrupted, giving India alternative markets and economic routes.

A major BRICS ambition is reducing excessive dependence on the US dollar-dominated financial system. India is not proposing an immediate common BRICS currency, but rather practical alternatives through local-currency trade, interoperable payment systems and development finance. Russian President Vladimir Putin highlighted the shifting economic balance by comparing BRICS' roughly 40 per cent share of global GDP with the G7's 29 per cent.

India's UPI offers a model for this effort. In August, it processed about 24.5 billion transactions worth ₹29.8 lakh crore. With UPI already operational in 11 countries, India can bring practical digital-payment expertise to BRICS discussions on cross-border transactions.

The New Development Bank (NDB) is another key pillar. India has an 18.72 per cent stake, compared with roughly 2.6 per cent voting share in the IMF and 2.91 per cent in the World Bank's IBRD. India is the NDB's second-largest recipient of financing, behind China, and received $2 billion in COVID-related emergency and recovery loans. The bank therefore gives emerging economies a larger role in development finance and could help fund infrastructure in India and across the Global South.

That also expands India's diplomatic influence. New Delhi has long positioned itself as a bridge between developed and developing countries. BRICS gives India a larger Global South platform to push issues such as climate finance, development, energy and food security and reform of global institutions. It can also strengthen India's case for a permanent UN Security Council seat, though BRICS itself cannot guarantee that and China remains a permanent UNSC member.

The most complicated part of India's BRICS strategy is China. Beijing is the grouping's strongest economic power and wants a stronger alternative to the US-led financial order. India shares the desire for strategic autonomy but does not want BRICS to become a China-led or anti-Western bloc. Hence the distinction that BRICS should be “non-West” rather than “anti-West.”

India's strength is its ability to belong to multiple strategic platforms. It is part of BRICS, the Quad and the SCO, while maintaining major relationships with the US, Europe, Russia, Japan and the Gulf. This allows New Delhi to engage Washington on security and technology, Europe on trade, Russia on defence and energy, China through BRICS and the Gulf on investment and energy. Being inside multiple rooms gives India bargaining space when pressure comes from different directions.

Friday's diplomacy demonstrated that balancing act. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin discussed defence, energy, trade, technology, space, infrastructure and industrial cooperation, besides the West Asia and Black Sea conflicts and their impact on maritime trade and Indian seafarers. India and Russia are targeting $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2030. Future defence cooperation has also been linked to systems such as the Su-57 and S-500, although no S-500 deal was announced today. Modi and Putin visited the INNOPROM India industrial exhibition, while Putin invited Modi to Russia for the next annual summit. Modi also gifted him a Russian translation of the Thirukkural.

Modi separately met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, whose visit is the first by an Iranian president to India in eight years. Iran is important to India beyond BRICS because of Chabahar, the International North-South Transport Corridor, Central Asian connectivity, energy and regional security. Pezeshkian called for diversification of Iran's trade partners, financial resources and payment mechanisms, arguing that economic and national security are increasingly connected.

Today, September 12, the BRICS Leaders' Summit will focus on global governance, trade, development, technology and supply-chain resilience. The biggest spotlight will be on Modi's meeting with Xi Jinping, testing India's ability to cooperate with China inside BRICS while managing it as its biggest strategic competitor.

For India, BRICS is therefore not about abandoning the West or replacing the dollar overnight. It is about building enough markets, financial channels, trade routes, institutions and diplomatic partnerships to ensure India has choices, whichever direction the pressure comes from.