Discuss the challenges of consensus-building within BRICS given its expanded membership and divergent foreign policy interests, with reference to the New Delhi Declaration (2026).

BRICS, which began as a four-member economic grouping in 2009, is today an eleven-member bloc spanning the Global South. The 18th Summit at Bharat Mandapam (12–13 September 2026), chaired by India under the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability," adopted the New Delhi Declaration unanimously [1][2] — but only after negotiations that exposed how fragile consensus has become.

Expansion has imported rival conflicts into the bloc

• Admission of Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE (2023 Johannesburg expansion) and Indonesia placed states on opposite sides of the West Asia war inside one grouping.
• India, as Chair, had to run prolonged Sherpa-channel consultations; the MEA itself acknowledged that differences among members "made it difficult for the grouping to forge a consensus" on West Asia [4].
• Negotiations went to the wire, with Iran and the UAE conceding a last-minute compromise on the conflict's description [3].

Consensus produces lowest-common-denominator language

• The Declaration expressed "deep concern" and urged "maximum restraint", avoiding direct attribution for the strikes on Iran and the retaliatory strikes on Gulf states [1][3].
• Contentious theatres are handled by silence or generality, since unanimity among all members is procedurally indispensable.

Divergent strategic visions of BRICS itself

• Russia, China and Iran pushed harder language on unilateral coercive measures, national-currency trade and reform of Western-dominated financial institutions; India resisted any drift towards an anti-Western bloc [3].
• India simultaneously balances close ties with Israel against the bloc's criticism of the Gaza campaign and its backing of South Africa's case before the ICJ [1].
• Attendance itself was uneven — Brazil and the UAE sent representatives rather than heads of state [3].

Consensus-building in an expanded BRICS therefore trades depth of commitment for breadth of membership. Yet the Declaration's delivery — with converging agendas on UNSC and financial-institution reform, climate finance and the Paris Agreement [1][2] — shows that issue-based coalitions can still work. Institutionalising Sherpa-level conflict-management and sequencing contentious items behind shared development goals would let BRICS retain its credibility as an authentic voice of the Global South.