BRICS: India tries to turn summit diplomacy into strategic leverage

The conclusion of the BRICS summit in New Delhi is arguably India's most consequential diplomatic story of the current time. Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the expanded grouping to push a pragmatic agenda covering trade, local-currency payments, critical minerals, energy, AI, health and institutional reform, while the 45-page New Delhi Declaration sought consensus on Gaza, sanctions, terrorism and global governance without allowing internal divisions to fracture the bloc. The more significant signal, however, was India's bilateral diplomacy - Modi engaged Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Masoud Pezeshkian and leaders from Vietnam, Malaysia and Ethiopia. The India-China thaw is therefore becoming a working diplomatic instrument rather than merely symbolism. In fact, New Delhi will increasingly use BRICS as a platform for strategic autonomy—cooperating with China and Russia where interests overlap while simultaneously deepening Indo-Pacific, technology and defence partnerships with countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines.