BRICS 2026: India’s chairship and Global South’s push for “endless war to end of war”

New Delhi : As New Delhi is set to host the heads of state for the 18th BRICS Summit this weekend, the multinational bloc stands at a historic crossroads amid the escalating crisis in West Asia and the protracted war in Ukraine.
Chaired by India under the theme of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, the summit opens amidst intense structural friction generated by two active global conflict zones which have dealt a devastating blow to developing nations, sharply exacerbating critical challenges surrounding energy security, food inflation, fertiliser supply chains, and rising sovereign debt.
Yet, as these cascading spillovers hit the Global South hardest, traditional Western-led governance structures face gridlock. Finding themselves largely voiceless in mainstream multilateral forums, developing economies are turning to BRICS, seen as a vital platform capable of articulating an alternative vision and amplifying the urgent concerns of nations otherwise excluded from global decision-making.
And with major protagonists such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arriving for the summit, New Delhi — positioned as a willing facilitator for peace — faces the crucial yet fragile task of spearheading the ambitious agenda for the summit while serving as an external mediator to keep it from descending into a geopolitical battleground.
Highlighting how these cascading economic and security crises disproportionately impact developing nations while leaving them marginalised in global decision-making, Vice President of Studies and Foreign Policy at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) Harsh V Pant told ANI, “The ongoing conflicts in West Asia and Ukraine have impacted the developing world very seriously. And therefore, BRICS as a platform that amplifies the voice of the Global South, that talks about the developing countries’ concerns, is particularly relevant because developing world find itself voiceless when it comes to global governance, even as they are being impacted the most by these conflicts. So if you recall the Russia-Ukraine conflict has been particularly challenging, and then the West Asian crisis has been challenging for the developing world. There is energy security, food security, there has been issues around fertilizers, there has been issues around debt and economic crisis, all of them because of these crisis have been exacerbated. And that challenge is certainly something that BRICS members and partner nations will try to amplify and will try to discuss. Because this is a major concern for a large part of the world and BRICS would want to be the voice of that part of the world that is not often represented in global discussions.”
As highlighted by Pant, beyond external economic shocks, the contemporary wars place substantial internal strains on the expanded 10-member bloc and its partner nations. The expansion of BRICS has brought together states with starkly different geopolitical alignments:
Russia and Iran are direct parties to ongoing conflicts and face extensive Western sanctions regimes, while members such as the UAE, Egypt, and partner nations maintain deep financial, security, and diplomatic partnerships with Western capitals, making them cautious about endorsing anti-Western rhetoric.
Saudi Arabia’s carefully calibrated participation further reflects this balancing act. Multi-Aligned Powers: India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia seek strategic autonomy—refusing to endorse unilateral sanctions while maintaining productive relations with both Western powers and Eastern partners.
Beyond the ideological differences, these wars create contrasting domestic pressures across member states. Energy-importing members suffer from inflation spikes driven by Red Sea maritime disruptions and grain shortages, whereas energy-exporting members experience different fiscal dynamics. Balancing these contrasting domestic priorities requires BRICS to focus heavily on practical economic derisking—such as local currency trade settlements and supply chain resilience—rather than divisive political alignment.
Despite these internal strains, previous BRICS outcome documents demonstrate a documented track record of consensus decisions and firm collective stances such as the Kazan Declaration 2024 — which issued the call for reforming global governace, encouraged peaceful resolution of conflicts through diplomacy and dialogue — the Rio de Janeiro Declaration 2025 —which reaffirmed commitment to the UN charter and multilateral cooperation — and the New Delhi Foreign Ministers’ Outcome Document May 2026 — which reaffirmed adherence to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) regarding navigational rights in the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz.
Official pre-summit briefings by India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirm that the BRICS Sherpas meeting, held earlier this year in Delhi, was intensely engaged in negotiating a balanced joint communique, also known as the Delhi Declaration.
The process of achieving consensus in the bloc has, however, not been a cakewalk. BRICS members have often faced internal friction points. The New Delhi Foreign Ministers’ Outcome Document noted that “there were differing views among some members as regard to the situation in the West Asia/Middle East region” and that member states “expressed their respective national positions and shared a range of perspectives”, demonstrating the delicate negotiation required to achieve consensus text.