Strategic Autonomy in motion as India hosts 18th BRICS Summit
India is hosting the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi at Bharat Mandapam from 11 to 13 September 2026, under its 2026 BRICS chairship (assumed 1 January 2026).
The summit's theme is "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability" (RICS), with the agenda spanning the Global South, climate action, digital cooperation, and economic growth.
The chairship is being used to position BRICS as a platform for institutional reform and financial inclusivity for developing economies, while avoiding an explicit anti-Western framing.
The hosting comes amid India's continuing engagement with an expanded BRICS+ grouping that now includes several new members admitted in 2024, requiring balancing of ties among members with divergent positions on global geopolitical issues.
BRICS Grouping — Origin and Expansion
BRICS began as an informal grouping (BRIC) of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with the term coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 to describe fast-growing emerging economies. The grouping held its first formal summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2009; South Africa joined in 2010, making it "BRICS."
The 2026 summit is India's third turn as BRICS host and the first since the 2024 expansion, making questions of coherence among an enlarged, more geopolitically diverse membership central to India's chairship agenda.
New Development Bank (NDB) — BRICS' Financial Arm
The New Development Bank is a multilateral development bank set up by BRICS members as an alternative funding source for infrastructure and sustainable development projects, reducing reliance on the World Bank and IMF.
The NDB is frequently cited as evidence of BRICS' practical, non-Western institutional alternative — a theme India is expected to reinforce while resisting any narrative that casts BRICS purely as a counter-bloc to Western-led institutions.
India's Strategic Autonomy Doctrine
Strategic autonomy refers to India's foreign policy approach of engaging multiple, sometimes rival, power blocs simultaneously without formal alliance commitments, preserving independent decision-making on security and economic matters.
Hosting BRICS while sustaining Quad commitments is presented as a live demonstration of strategic autonomy — using the platform to advance Global South priorities without being drawn into a China-Russia-led anti-Western alignment.
Global South Leadership Positioning
"Global South" refers to developing and least-developed countries, largely in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, often seeking greater voice in global economic governance (IMF/World Bank quota reform, UNSC expansion, climate finance).
Key Details
- India convened the "Voice of Global South Summit" in January 2023 and January 2024, ahead of its G20 presidency (2023), positioning itself as a bridge between developed and developing economies.
- India's G20 presidency (2023) secured African Union's induction as a permanent G20 member.
- BRICS' 2024 expansion is itself read as a Global South institutional reform push, adding more African and Middle Eastern voices.
India's BRICS chairship theme explicitly extends its G20-era Global South leadership narrative, using RICS pillars to argue BRICS should serve broader developing-world interests rather than any single member's geopolitical agenda.
- 18th BRICS Summit: New Delhi, Bharat Mandapam, 11-13 September 2026.
- India assumed 2026 BRICS chairship: 1 January 2026.
- Summit theme: "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability" (RICS).
- BRICS founding summit: Yekaterinburg, 2009; South Africa joined 2010; expanded 2024 to add Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE.
- New Development Bank: agreement 2014 (Fortaleza), operational 2015, headquartered in Shanghai.
- India's earlier BRICS hosting years: 2012 (New Delhi), 2021 (virtual).