The New Delhi Declaration reveals both the possibilities and the limits of a changing world order—and the extraordinary balancing act India must perform within it. There are moments in international diplomacy when what is not said can be as important as what is said. The 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi was one of those moments.

The leaders of the expanded BRICS grouping adopted a 140-point New Delhi Declaration covering global governance, trade, payments, technology, development, climate change, health and international conflicts. They managed to find common ground despite profound differences in political systems, strategic interests, economic structures and foreign-policy priorities.

That achievement deserves attention.

But the more interesting story lies beneath the declaration.

BRICS is simultaneously becoming more important and more difficult to define. It wants a greater voice for the Global South, yet its members do not always agree on what that voice should say. It seeks greater use of national currencies and more efficient cross-border payment systems, yet it stops well short of creating a common currency or a single financial system. It calls for a more representative global order, while many of its members continue to maintain deep economic and strategic relationships with the existing one.

And at the centre of this paradox stands India.

New Delhi wants a more multipolar world—but not a world divided into hostile blocs.

It wants strategic autonomy—but also strong relationships with the United States and Europe.

It wants deeper economic cooperation with BRICS—but cannot ignore the uncomfortable reality that its trade relationships with some of its most important BRICS partners are already heavily unbalanced.

This raises a question that deserves much more attention than it usually receives:

How far can India actually expand its trade within BRICS when the underlying economic relationship with some major members makes a substantial narrowing of those imbalances extremely difficult?

That is where the promise of BRICS meets the hard arithmetic of trade.

The Power of Ambiguity

At first reading, the New Delhi Declaration can appear remarkably cautious.

It criticizes unilateral protectionist measures, raises concerns about unilateral sanctions and secondary sanctions, calls for greater representation of developing countries in global decision-making, supports reform of the multilateral trading system, and addresses major international conflicts.

At the same time, much of its language is deliberately general rather than confrontational.

That is not a diplomatic weakness.

It is a diplomatic engineering.

Consider the composition of BRICS today. China and India remain strategic competitors. Iran and the United Arab Emirates sit within the same grouping despite sharply different regional relationships. Russia is deeply opposed to many aspects of the Western order, while India maintains an expanding strategic partnership with the United States, Japan and Europe. Other members have their own regional priorities, economic dependencies and foreign-policy calculations.

How does such a group produce a common document?

The answer is carefully calibrated language.

The declaration seeks principles broad enough for different countries to interpret them within their own national interests. That enables members to agree on governance reform, greater voice for developing countries, trade cooperation, payment interoperability and a more representative international system without pretending that they share identical geopolitical objectives.

This may be the most important characteristic of BRICS.

Its strength may lie not in uniformity, but in its ability to accommodate difference.

The same principle, however, creates a limitation. A declaration can facilitate trade. It cannot by itself create competitive exports. It can encourage local-currency settlement. It cannot eliminate a structural trade deficit. It can call for stronger economic cooperation. It cannot make fundamentally different production structures suddenly complementary.

That distinction becomes particularly important for India.

India’s BRICS Trade Paradox: More Trade Does Not Necessarily Mean Better Trade

India’s position within BRICS is unusually complicated because the aspiration for greater intra-BRICS trade confronts a difficult economic reality.

India already has substantial trade relationships with major BRICS economies. But those relationships are not evenly balanced.

The most striking case is China, where India’s imports substantially exceed its exports. India’s import basket includes machinery, electronics, electrical equipment, industrial inputs, chemicals, pharmaceutical intermediates and a wide range of manufactured goods and components. Russia presents a different but equally important picture: India’s imports of Russian crude oil have become a major component of bilateral trade.

This creates a peculiar paradox.

India can certainly trade more with BRICS. But it cannot assume that more trade will automatically mean more balanced trade.

Indeed, in some circumstances, expanding trade without changing the composition of that trade could widen the deficit.

This is the uncomfortable economic question beneath the diplomatic language of greater BRICS integration.

India cannot realistically expect to transform its relationship with China into a balanced trading relationship simply through declarations, payment arrangements or lower transaction costs. Nor can it easily expect to reverse the basic structure of its trade with Russia while remaining a major energy importer.

The problem is structural.

China possesses enormous manufacturing scale and competitiveness across a broad range of industrial products. Russia has a major comparative advantage in energy and commodities. India, meanwhile, is attempting to strengthen domestic manufacturing, technology capabilities and value-added exports while continuing to meet large domestic requirements for energy, capital goods, components and industrial inputs.

These differences will not disappear in the medium term.

They may not disappear even in the long term.

This is where India’s BRICS position becomes genuinely ambivalent.

India may have considerable scope to increase exports to some BRICS economies. But with its largest BRICS trading partners, particularly China and Russia, there are powerful structural reasons why a dramatic reversal of existing trade patterns should not be expected.

That reality needs to be acknowledged rather than obscured by aggregate trade numbers.

The Protectionism Paradox

India wants greater South-South trade and deeper integration with global value chains. But it also wants to protect and nurture domestic productive capacity.

Opening the Indian market further to highly competitive imports from China could provide cheaper inputs and greater consumer choice. It could also place additional pressure on Indian manufacturers in sectors where domestic capabilities are still developing.

Conversely, stronger protection of domestic industry may support Indian manufacturing but reduce some of the immediate benefits of deeper intra-BRICS trade.

There is no easy answer.

India therefore has to distinguish between trade that strengthens productive capacity and trade that merely increases import dependence.

The objective cannot simply be to increase the value of India’s BRICS trade.

It has to be to improve its composition.

India needs greater exports of manufactured goods, services, technology-intensive products, engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, food products and other higher-value activities. Without a significant expansion of India’s export capacity, the aspiration of deeper BRICS trade could unintentionally reinforce the very imbalances India wants to manage.

This is why Make in India, export competitiveness and BRICS integration cannot be treated as separate policy conversations.

They are closely connected.

The Currency Paradox

The same problem appears in the discussion about local currencies.

Using national currencies for a larger share of bilateral transactions can reduce dependence on the dollar for particular transactions, lower some conversion costs and create additional payment options.

But a payment mechanism cannot solve an underlying trade imbalance.

Suppose India imports substantially more from a BRICS partner than it exports to that country. If the transactions are settled in rupees and the partner accumulates large rupee balances, a new problem can emerge: what can the partner do with those balances?

Unless there are sufficiently attractive and liquid avenues for investment or purchases in India, the balances may accumulate rather than circulate efficiently.

In other words, changing the currency of settlement does not change the economics of trade.

The New Delhi Declaration’s approach is therefore significant precisely because it is relatively pragmatic. It supports greater cross-border payment connectivity, local-currency settlement and financial cooperation without pretending that a single alternative monetary system can solve every problem.

That is sensible.

For India, however, the larger lesson is clear.

A successful local-currency settlement framework will require not merely new financial plumbing but stronger two-way trade, deeper financial markets, greater convertibility and more balanced economic relationships.

Otherwise, the plumbing may become more sophisticated while the underlying imbalance remains unchanged.

India’s Long-Term Dilemma: Integration Without Asymmetry

This leaves India facing a difficult question for the years ahead.

If trade with major BRICS partners continues to grow, India’s imports could continue to rise faster than its exports in several important relationships.

If India tries to contain those imports through tariffs, safeguards or domestic industrial policies, it may limit some of the benefits of deeper intra-BRICS liberalization.

If it liberalizes more rapidly, it could expose vulnerable domestic industries to stronger competitive pressures.

If it promotes local-currency trade, it still has to confront the problem of persistent bilateral imbalances.

And if India seeks to reduce those imbalances by dramatically increasing exports, it must become considerably more competitive in precisely those areas where China and other major manufacturing economies already possess formidable advantages.

This is not an argument against BRICS.

It is an argument for realism about what BRICS can and cannot accomplish.

The New Delhi Declaration can create an enabling environment for trade.

It cannot create export competitiveness by itself.

It can make payments easier.

It cannot make trade balanced.

It can encourage investment.

It cannot automatically produce technology transfer or industrial upgrading.

It can promote economic cooperation.

It cannot erase differences in comparative advantage.

India’s dilemma, therefore, may persist for many years: BRICS offers a larger economic neighbourhood, but that neighbourhood does not necessarily offer symmetrical economic opportunities.

And that is why India may find itself in a peculiar position even over the medium and long term.

It may want more BRICS trade because diversification, new markets and stronger South-South economic relationships are valuable. Yet it must remain alert to the possibility that greater trade with some partners could also mean greater import dependence and larger deficits unless India’s domestic productive and export capacity changes substantially.

The answer cannot be to retreat from BRICS.

Nor can it be to pursue integration regardless of its consequences.

The answer lies in building the capacity to engage more successfully.

India’s real economic challenge is therefore not simply to trade more with BRICS, but to become more competitive within BRICS.

That is a much more demanding proposition.

Washington Is Watching the Plumbing, Not Just the Politics

It would be tempting to conclude that Washington either fears BRICS or dismisses it.

Neither interpretation is sufficient.

BRICS is not a military alliance. It is not a customs union. It is not a single market. Its members have major disagreements among themselves. India-China strategic competition alone makes the emergence of a unified anti-Western bloc extremely difficult.

But this does not make BRICS irrelevant to the United States.

The more consequential question is not whether BRICS will suddenly challenge the dominance of the dollar.

It is whether the international system will gradually become less dependent on a single financial infrastructure.

Payment interoperability, national-currency settlements, alternative financial channels and greater use of digital technologies could, over time, give countries more choices in conducting international commerce.

That does not mean the dollar is about to disappear.

It means that the architecture surrounding international finance may gradually become more plural.

This distinction is crucial.

The future may not be de-dollarization versus dollar dominance.

It may be a world in which the dollar remains the principal global currency while other channels become increasingly important alongside it.

That is a much more plausible—and potentially much more consequential—form of multipolarity.

Why China and Russia Can Live With India’s Middle Path

There is another intriguing question.

Do China and Russia want BRICS to become explicitly anti-Western?

Some voices in both countries may favour a stronger challenge to Western dominance. Yet there is a strategic reason for Beijing and Moscow to tolerate India’s more moderate position.

An openly anti-Western BRICS would have a narrower appeal.

Many countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East want greater room for manoeuvre. They want stronger relationships with China and Russia, but they do not necessarily want to abandon economic, technological or security relationships with Europe or the United States.

India’s presence helps make BRICS more attractive to precisely these countries.

India brings credibility as a country that can speak to different sides without formally belonging to a geopolitical camp. Its relationships with Washington, Moscow, Europe, the Gulf and the developing world give it a diplomatic reach that few other BRICS members possess.

In that sense, India’s strategic autonomy is not merely India’s strategy.

It may be one of BRICS’ greatest assets.

The Real Battle Is Over the Rules

Perhaps the most significant part of the New Delhi Declaration is not the rhetoric surrounding geopolitical rivalry.

It is the demand for institutional reform.

BRICS is not simply calling for the destruction of the existing international system.

It is demanding a larger voice within it.

The declaration calls for greater representation of developing countries in global decision-making, including reform of the UN Security Council. It also supports greater representation of emerging and developing economies within the IMF and World Bank and calls for a stronger, more predictable multilateral trading system.

The WTO issue is particularly revealing. BRICS supports restoring a fully functioning, two-tier binding dispute-settlement mechanism, including a functioning Appellate Body.

This is a profound point.

The emerging powers are not necessarily asking to burn down the post-1945 institutions.

They are saying:

The world has changed. The institutions must change with it.

The economic weight of Asia, the demographic importance of Africa and the growing contribution of emerging markets are fundamentally different from the world of 1945.

An international system that does not adequately reflect those realities will eventually face a crisis of legitimacy.

BRICS is attempting to convert that legitimacy question into an institutional reform agenda.

From Rhetoric to Results

But here lies the real test.

Declarations are relatively easy.

Implementation is not.

BRICS has accumulated an impressive vocabulary over the years: local currencies, payment interoperability, development finance, technology cooperation, supply-chain resilience, global governance reform and greater South-South cooperation.

The difficult question is what happens next.

Can businesses actually use new payment mechanisms at scale?

Can trade among BRICS economies become more balanced and sophisticated?

Can technology move across borders without becoming hostage to geopolitical rivalry?

Can developing countries gain access to higher-value segments of global production rather than remaining suppliers of raw materials and low-value goods?

Can BRICS financial institutions mobilize significantly more development finance?

And, perhaps most importantly, can countries with sharply different political and strategic interests continue to cooperate when their interests genuinely collide?

For India, one additional question must be asked:

Can deeper BRICS integration increase India’s economic opportunities without deepening its structural dependence on imports from some of its largest partners?

That question will not be answered in a summit declaration.

It will be answered by India’s factories, exporters, entrepreneurs, researchers, logistics systems, energy strategy and technological capabilities.

The real measure of BRICS economic cooperation will therefore not be the number of agreements signed.

It will be whether those agreements change the productive capacities of member economies.

India’s Balancing Act Is Becoming a Global Strategy

For India, the New Delhi summit carries a significance that goes beyond BRICS.

India is increasingly finding itself at the intersection of several worlds.

It is a member of BRICS and the Quad.

It has deep historical ties with Russia and a rapidly expanding strategic partnership with the United States.

It seeks stronger economic integration with Europe while maintaining extensive relationships across the Global South.

It competes with China while simultaneously trading extensively with it.

This is not necessarily inconsistency.

It is the reality of a world in which national interests can no longer be neatly organized into two opposing camps.

India’s answer has been strategic autonomy.

But strategic autonomy should not be confused with strategic isolation.

The distinction is important.

India does not have to choose between the West and the Global South. Nor does it need to choose between Russia and the United States, or between cooperation with China and competition with China.

Its larger challenge is to preserve sufficient strategic space to pursue its own economic and security interests while contributing to a more balanced international system.

That is an extraordinarily difficult balancing act.

It may also become one of India’s defining foreign-policy contributions to the twenty-first century.

The World Is Becoming Multipolar. The Question Is What That Multipolarity Will Mean.

The 18th BRICS Summit was neither the birth of a new world order nor merely another diplomatic gathering.

It was something more subtle—and perhaps more important.

It showed what a multipolar world actually looks like when the abstractions disappear.

Different countries sitting around the same table.

Different interests.

Different histories.

Different strategic partnerships.

Different definitions of national interest.

And yet, a willingness to negotiate.

That is the paradox.

BRICS is powerful enough to influence the international conversation, but too diverse to impose a single geopolitical vision. It can challenge aspects of the existing order, but it cannot easily replace it. It can promote alternatives in trade, finance and global governance, but it cannot escape the economic realities that bind its members to the wider world.

And India sits almost perfectly at the centre of that contradiction.

For India, the economic reality is especially revealing.

The country can benefit from wider BRICS markets, investment, technology cooperation and more flexible payment arrangements. But it cannot assume that deeper integration will automatically produce balanced trade. With some major BRICS partners, India’s import dependence and trade deficits are rooted in differences in manufacturing scale, energy needs, competitiveness and comparative advantage that cannot be wished away by diplomatic declarations.

This means India’s BRICS strategy must ultimately be more ambitious than simply seeking more trade.

It must seek better trade.

More value-added exports.

Greater manufacturing competitiveness.

More technology-intensive production.

Stronger services exports.

More diversified supply chains.

And greater capacity to participate in the higher-value segments of global production.

Only then can the promise of BRICS become a genuine economic opportunity rather than simply a larger arena in which existing asymmetries are reproduced.

Perhaps the most important lesson from New Delhi is therefore not that one power is replacing another.

It is that power itself is becoming more dispersed.

The emerging international system may not be defined by the victory of BRICS over the West, or the West over BRICS. It may instead be defined by continuous negotiation among several centres of power, each too important to ignore and none powerful enough to dictate the rules alone.

That world will be more complicated.

It may also be more democratic.

But multipolarity by itself does not guarantee fairness. A world with many powerful countries can still produce inequality, coercion and conflict. The real achievement will come only if greater distribution of power is accompanied by stronger institutions, more predictable rules and a greater voice for countries—and people—that historically had little influence over the making of those rules.

That is ultimately what is at stake in BRICS.

The question is not whether BRICS will replace the old order.

The deeper question is whether it can help reshape the old order into something more representative, more balanced and more capable of accommodating the world that has already emerged.

And perhaps that is the real meaning of New Delhi.

The future of the international order may not be decided by who sits at the head of the table—but by how many voices are finally allowed to sit around it.