Examine India's role as a consensus-builder within heterogeneous multilateral groupings, taking BRICS as a case study.

Multilateral groupings today are increasingly heterogeneous — differing regimes, rival neighbours and divergent trade interests inside one table. BRICS, expanded to eleven members and marking its 20th year, is the sharpest test of India's claim to be a bridge-builder, and its 2026 Chairship offers evidence to examine that claim.

The heterogeneity challenge in BRICS

• Strategic divergence: the bloc contains two UNSC veto-holders (China, Russia) alongside aspirants India and Brazil, plus West Asian members with conflicting alignments — unanimity, BRICS' operating principle, becomes harder with every enlargement [1].
• Economic asymmetry: China's economic weight dwarfs that of newer members, risking a bloc perceived as one-country-led rather than plurilateral.
• Normative gap: members differ on how far to position BRICS against the Western order, complicating language on sanctions and tariffs.

India's consensus-building instruments

• Process diplomacy: over 400 meetings across 30 Indian cities during the Chairship year — ministerial, expert and people-to-people — built agreement incrementally before the leaders met at Bharat Mandapam [1][2].
• Agenda framing: the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability", anchored in "Humanity First", shifted focus to development goods — critical minerals, industrial innovation (PartNIR), poverty eradication — where interests converge [1][2].
• Outcome: the unanimous adoption of the ~140-point New Delhi Declaration, which backed UNSC reform to amplify the Global South's voice and support for India and Brazil's greater UN role, and encouraged settlement in local currencies [1].

Limits of the role

• Consensus was purchased through generalised language — condemnation of unilateral coercion without naming states.
• Declarations remain non-binding; UNSC reform depends on members who themselves hold the veto.

India's BRICS Chairship shows that consensus in plural groupings is engineered through patient process and development-first framing rather than ideological alignment. Converting declaratory gains into institutional outcomes — payment interoperability, reformed multilateralism, delivery on SDG commitments — is the natural next step for India's Global South leadership.