Global governance institutions remain unrepresentative of contemporary geopolitical realities. Critically examine with reference to BRICS's advocacy for inclusive governance.

The architecture of global governance — the UN Security Council, IMF and World Bank — was designed in 1945 for a world of 51 states and a very different distribution of power. BRICS, whose 18th Summit India hosted at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi on 12–13 September 2026 under the theme "Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability" [1][2], has emerged as the principal plurilateral voice demanding that this order be made representative.

The representation deficit is real

• UNSC permanent membership remains frozen at the 1945 victors; Africa, Latin America and the bulk of Asia have no permanent seat despite housing most of humanity.
• Bretton Woods quotas still under-weight emerging economies relative to their share of global output, limiting Global South voice in crisis lending and conditionality.
• BRICS has repeatedly sought a "more just, equitable, representative, legitimate and democratic" multilateral system, most recently in the Rio de Janeiro Declaration (2025) on Global South cooperation [3].

BRICS's advocacy: strengths

• Convening weight: an expanded ten-member grouping — Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the UAE — lends demographic and economic credibility to the reform demand [2].
• Institution-building, not only critique: the New Development Bank offers an alternative development-finance channel, while India's Chairship year built functional cooperation through trade, health, standards and IP meetings [4][5].

But the critique cuts both ways

• Internal asymmetry: Chinese economic preponderance and India–China divergence dilute a common position, weakening the claim to be a democratic alternative.
• No binding outcome: BRICS declarations are exhortatory; UNSC reform still turns on the P5 veto, which BRICS members themselves partly hold.
• Coherence costs of expansion: a more heterogeneous membership makes consensus slower, and internal credibility is the precondition for external persuasion [1].

The deficit of representation is therefore genuine, but BRICS is presently a pressure group rather than a substitute order. Its value lies in keeping reform on the agenda and supplying working alternatives. For India, the durable path is to pair BRICS advocacy with G20 and Voice of Global South engagement, so that inclusive governance advances by widening existing institutions rather than fragmenting them.