India Sets the Agenda at Johannesburg BRICS Summit

The phenomenal accomplishment of becoming the fourth country to soft land on the moon and the first one to reach the Lunar South Pole has inadvertently placed India in a pole position at the Johannesburg BRICS summit. The stupendous success veritably positioned India as an emerging space power. Witnessing the live broadcast of the soft landing virtually from South Africa, PM Modi hailing the efforts of ISRO scientists said, “This success belongs to all of humanity, not just India”.  

Resonating with our human-centric approach of “One Earth, One Family, One Future”, the theme of India’s G20 Presidency post Chandrayaan-3 success, PM Modi called for a broadening of space cooperation at the BRICS summit. He suggested a working proposal on the BRICS satellite constellation and the creation of the BRICS Space Exploration Consortium to cooperate in space research and weather monitoring.

Just years into his Prime Ministership, deploying India’s space prowess under the “neighbourhood first policy”, Modi unleashed space diplomacy to foster SAARC regional cooperation. India successfully launched a communication satellite South Asia Satellite (SAS) in 2017 for the benefit of South Asian countries. With Pakistan choosing to opt-out, Nepal, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan continue to draw benefits in terms of telemedicine, tele-education, and television broadcasting opportunities.

India’s mutually beneficial development model has been thus vividly different. Pursuing a proactive diplomacy, building bridges with an emphasis on developmental forays, India is steadily gaining the trust of nations as a responsible power.

After setting the agenda at SCO and successively delivering as the Chair of SCO, India is now credibly laying down a framework for cooperation at BRICS. Both SCO and BRICS are China-centric organisations but India is steering the course by shifting the focus to address the challenges faced by the member nations.

Steered by Russia and China BRICS comprising of emerging nations, took off post-global recession of 2008. By steadily accumulating economic and military capital, China has dominated BRICS. With capacities on par with the US in various domains, China which has graduated from being a developing economy to an emerging superpower status has now veritably set its eyes on increasing its global heft.

BRICS expansion strategy is part of Beijing's larger global ambitions to build a lobby against the West But the changing global environment, India’s steady rise, and the Chinese economy's slide into deflation have turned the tide. Decelerating growth, rising youth unemployment, real estate bubble, and flattening export curve accompanied by attendant demographic decline have virtually brought the Chinese economy to a halt.

President Xi’s no-show at the BRICS Business Forum Leaders session has lent weight to growing pessimism over China’s economy. Vociferous in flaunting its achievements, Xi’s absence at the session to defend the Chinese economy and its support for emerging nations at the crucial opening session raised many speculations.

On the contrary exuding confidence, PM Modi spoke of India’s steady economic progress. Poised to become the growth engine of the world and inching closer to a $5 trillion economy, India is now emerging as an alternative in this shifting international power configuration. Shadowed by China, the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, India’s potential for growth largely remained a non-issue for the world for a while. But India’s new push for financial inclusion in the past nine years, an impressive three-fold increase in people’s incomes, reduced corruption and transparency in the delivery of services and the concomitant increase in ease of doing business are galvanising countries to deflect towards India¹. India’s attempts to rid these ailments of corruption, red tape, the deep-seated ailments afflicting the developing economies, and ensure transparency and accountability are slowly garnering international interest.

Deliberately staying away from the grandiose talks of a BRICS currency and dedollarisation, leading an alternate course by encouraging and promoting trade in national currencies, India is unveiling a new charter. Similarly, India’s seminal contribution and a great leap forward in commercial exchanges with digital payments which is now adopted in close to a dozen countries is increasingly finding favour.

At the BRICS Summit, showcasing India’s expertise in building public domains, PM Modi has offered to share these revolutionary platforms developed in India. The list includes- India Stack, a revolutionary public delivery system; CoWin- a platform to track vaccination; Bhashini, an AI-based language seamless language translation program; DIKSHA- a Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing Platform to provide education to children in remote and rural areas. Alongside, PM Modi has proposed collaboration on building ecosystems of traditional medicines, skill mapping, and big cats’ alliance cooperation².

Modi’s proposals as opposed to the cliched China’s “win-win cooperation”, a rough version of neo-colonialism in a different form epitomised India’s mutual beneficial development approach. India’s model is a stark departure from China’s insatiable capacity to dole out unsustainable infrastructure loans which has pushed several African countries to the brink of economic collapse. Several Global South countries' patrons of China’s connectivity projects are now seeking for alternative frameworks for growth and development.

Projecting herself as a credible actor to address the current global challenges, India has put down a strong foot to halt Beijing’s attempt to turn BRICS into a China Club to enhance its bargaining power and negotiate compacts. The expansion has been on the cards with China persistently pushing for it. The expansion is subject to the consensus-decision making of the member countries. India and Brazil resisted Chinese attempts but last year all five members expressed interest.

Originally conceived as BRIC, comprising of Brazil, Russia, India and China, with varied ideologies, interests and policies the common parameter of the bloc is the potential to dominate the global economy by 2050. South Africa was later admitted to the group making its BRICS. Though the group represents a quarter of global GDP, failure to evolve a coherent vision has left BRICS punch below its weight. The five economies of BRICS represent 41% of the global population and 16% of global trade.

Conflating its geopolitical games with the interests of the Global South, Beijing is attempting to project itself as the leader of the Global South. With a promise to rebalance the global order, China is planning to draw countries into the BRICS fold through an expansion drive. Intensifying activism, China urged BRICS to become a geopolitical rival to G7 and admit new countries to the bloc. Consequently, the enlargement of BRICS has topped the agenda of the 15^th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg.

Blunting Chinese attempts to bring in a disparate pool of countries strategically important for China, India has insisted on adopting a clear set of guidelines, guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures for this expansion process. Additionally, PM Modi has pushed for a minimum per capita GDP requirement to stave off debt burdens.

India has in fact proposed rejecting countries on the target list of sanctions which includes Iran and Venezuela. But of the 22 countries that sought to join BRICS, through consultation and consensus- six countries were invited to join the bloc. These are -Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

China’s confrontation with the US entered a cold war-like scenario. But India dashed Chinese ambitions of building geopolitical clout through BRICS enlargement. Seeking to close the gap with China economically and firmly standing up to Beijing’s coercion, India is steadily evolving as a credible actor addressing global challenges. Offering practical and workable solutions and fostering developmental diplomacy in China-led organisations- SCO and BRICS, India is steadily propping herself as a regional challenger seeking a level playing field.

In contrast to China’s rhetoric of upholding the interests of the Global South, India hosted the Voice of the Global South Summit virtually under the theme of- “Unity of theme, Unity of Purpose” in January 2023. New Delhi has also put forth the proposal of G20 permanent membership for the African Union and rallied for the support of G20 countries. Indeed, donning the leadership mantle, Modi has outlined a new vision for BRICS which is B-Breaking barriers, R- Revitalising economies, I-Inspiring Innovation, C-Creating opportunities, S- Shaping the future.

China’s grandstanding of rebalancing the global power order and inclusion is in contravention to its resolute opposition to UNSC reforms. Calling out Beijing’s double speak PM Modi has, “called for setting defined timelines for UNSC reforms, called for reform of multilateral financial institutions, called for reform of WTO and exhorted BRICS to build consensus on its expansion” summarises MEA statement³.  The new India is no longer cowering under Chinese pressure and standing her ground, signalling her arrival. 

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