Can BRICS multipolarise the global order despite its internal divisions? Discuss with reference to India's role.

BRICS, now an eleven-member grouping representing nearly half the world's population and around 40% of global GDP [2], seeks to make global governance less unipolar. Its capacity to do so is real but partial — constrained less by intent than by its consensus-bound, internally divided character.

Where BRICS genuinely multipolarises

• Institutional alternative: the New Development Bank, the first multilateral development bank created by developing countries, offers infrastructure finance outside Bretton Woods conditionalities; the Rio Declaration (2025) backs widening its membership and fast-tracking pending applications [2].
• Agenda-setting for the Global South: India's 2026 chairship theme, "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability", advanced a people-centric agenda across 350+ meetings in 25 cities [1].
• Functional, low-politics gains: working tracks on MSMEs [3], health [4] and urbanisation build cooperation habits that survive geopolitical friction.

Where internal divisions bind

• No charter, no secretariat, no voting rule — outputs are consensus declarations and joint statements, not binding commitments [1]; expansion multiplies veto-holders.
• Divergent alignments: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are close US partners, while Iran and Russia face sanctions — one grouping, opposing interests [2].
• Financial ambitions stall on plumbing: local-currency settlement has advanced slowly because most member currencies are not freely convertible and payment systems remain unlinked.

India's balancing role

• India uses BRICS for strategic autonomy, hosting Russian, Chinese and Iranian leaders at the 18th Summit, New Delhi (12–13 September 2026) while deepening ties with the US and the Quad [1].
• Its presence checks Russia–China dominance: consensus gives India the same blocking power, letting it shape Global South language rather than cede it.
• India favours linking existing payment systems over a bloc-wide anti-dollar architecture, separating BRICS's development agenda from confrontation.

BRICS can therefore dilute, not displace, existing hierarchies — nudging the order toward plurality rather than building a rival bloc. Its promise lies in delivering funded projects, not declarations. For India, converting chairship outcomes into measurable NDB-financed deliverables is the surest way to make multipolarity developmental rather than merely rhetorical.