Critically analyze the challenges of consensus-building within an expanded BRICS grouping.

BRICS takes every substantive decision by consensus, without a treaty, charter or secretariat [1]. After the 2024 enlargement to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE — alongside a widening partner-country circle — the bloc's members now differ sharply in size, regime type and alignment, making unanimity harder even as its collective weight grows.

Why consensus has become harder

• Heterogeneity of interests: a grouping spanning oil exporters and importers, and states under sanctions alongside states deeply tied to Western markets, lacks a common economic denominator [3].
• Intra-bloc rivalry: unresolved boundary and trade frictions between India and China mean agreement is often reached only at the level of the lowest common formulation.
• Contested agenda-setting: proposals such as de-dollarisation and a common settlement currency attract members seeking to blunt sanctions, while others fear secondary tariffs — the New Development Bank has advanced pragmatically instead through local-currency lending and new members like Bangladesh, Egypt, UAE and Uruguay [4].
• Institutional thinness: with no permanent secretariat, continuity rests on the rotating chairship, so each presidency renegotiates priorities afresh [1].
• Dilution risk: every added voice raises the veto count, pushing declarations toward broad, non-binding language [3].

Why the process still delivers

• Consensus confers legitimacy — outcomes carry the weight of the entire Global South rather than a majority faction.
• Successive summits still produced substantive texts, from the 2021 New Delhi Declaration on "Continuity, Consolidation and Consensus" [5] to the New Delhi Declaration adopted at the 18th BRICS Summit (12–13 September 2026) under India's chairship [2].
• Variable-geometry cooperation — NDB finance, IP-office and innovation tracks — lets willing members progress without waiting for all [2].

Consensus is therefore less a paralysis than a deliberate price paid for inclusivity; the real risk is drift into declaratory diplomacy. Institutionalising a light secretariat, agreeing transparent admission criteria and expanding issue-based coalitions would preserve unity while restoring pace. For India, steering this balance advances its constitutional commitment to promoting international peace and a genuinely multipolar, reformed multilateral order.