India's simultaneous engagement with BRICS and the West reflects the challenge of strategic autonomy — critically analyse with reference to the 2026 BRICS Summit.

Strategic autonomy is India's capacity to pursue national interest without being locked into any bloc. The 18th BRICS Summit at New Delhi (12–13 September 2026), held under India's Chairship [1], put this balancing act on open display — a source of both leverage and vulnerability.

The dual engagement at the Summit

• As Chair, India hosted leaders of sanctions-hit states such as Russia and Iran, while simultaneously deepening trade, defence and technology ties with the U.S. and EU.
• The 16th BRICS Trade Ministers' Meeting (Jaipur) endorsed a reformed, WTO-centred multilateral trading system preserving Special and Differential Treatment for developing countries, and an MoU on standardisation to cut technical barriers to trade [2] — demands India also presses in Western-dominated forums.

How dual engagement strengthens autonomy

• Issue-based alignment: BRICS gives India voice on rising protectionism and multilateral reform; Quad and G7 partnerships supply capital, markets and critical technology.
• Economic hedging: the Business Council's $500 billion intra-BRICS trade roadmap [3] diversifies markets, reducing over-dependence on any single region.
• Payment resilience: RBI's INR trade-settlement framework and Special Rupee Vostro Accounts [4] lower transaction costs and sanctions exposure, without India endorsing a BRICS common currency.

Where the balancing act strains

• De-dollarisation optics: the local-currency push is read in Western capitals as anti-dollar, inviting tariff and secondary-sanction risk.
• China factor: an enlarged BRICS+ risks becoming a China-led platform, diluting India's own agenda.
• Consensus deficit: a larger, more diverse membership makes unified positions on sanctions or currency harder, thinning deliverables.
• Credibility cost: dual-track diplomacy attracts charges of fence-sitting from both camps.

India's conduct in New Delhi shows strategic autonomy is less a fixed posture than the continuous management of contradictions. By anchoring BRICS in development finance, trade facilitation and reformed multilateralism rather than confrontation, while institutionalising rupee-based settlement, India can convert balancing into bridge-building — autonomy exercised with purpose, not abandoned.