BRICS began as an acronym. It is becoming an argument.
When Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa first gave political life to the term, BRICS was seen mainly as a grouping of large emerging economies. It represented growth potential, demographic weight and dissatisfaction with Western-dominated institutions. But after its recent expansion, BRICS is no longer only a club of rising economies. It has become a political signal from the Global South.
That signal is simple: the world has changed, but global governance has not changed enough.
The countries joining or partnering with BRICS are not all identical. Some are democracies, some are monarchies, some are authoritarian states, some are energy exporters, some are energy importers, some are African, some are Asian, some are Latin American, some are sanctioned, some are Western partners, and some are geopolitical rivals of each other. Yet many share one feeling: the existing order does not give them enough voice, enough finance, enough respect or enough bargaining space.
BRICS expansion is therefore not just about membership. It is about the Global South searching for a platform where it can speak with more weight.
BRICS is now much larger than the original five
As of India’s official BRICS 2026 platform, BRICS brings together eleven major emerging markets and developing countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. The same official platform says BRICS represents about 49.5 percent of the global population, 40 percent of global GDP and 26 percent of global trade.
The recent expansion happened in stages. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE became full members from January 2024, while Indonesia joined in January 2025. Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam joined as partner countries in 2025.
This is a major shift. BRICS is no longer simply a five-country forum of large emerging economies. It now connects major energy producers, populous Asian powers, African states, Middle Eastern economies and Southeast Asia’s largest country. Its expanded shape reflects a broader reality: many non-Western countries want platforms outside the traditional architecture of Western-led power.
The question is whether BRICS can convert this larger size into coherent influence.
Expansion is a political message
The expansion of BRICS is not only about economics. It is about representation.
The world’s major institutions still carry the imprint of the post-Second World War order. The United Nations Security Council gives permanent power to five states. The Bretton Woods institutions continue to be criticised for under-representing developing economies. The dollar remains central to global finance. Western sanctions can affect countries far beyond the immediate target. Climate finance remains inadequate. Debt restructuring is slow. Trade rules are often seen as uneven.
In this context, BRICS offers an alternative space where developing and emerging countries can say: we may not control the old institutions, but we can build pressure from outside them.
At the 2025 Rio de Janeiro Summit, BRICS leaders explicitly framed their meeting around “Strengthening Global South Cooperation for a More Inclusive and Sustainable Governance.” The Rio Declaration committed the expanded BRICS to a more representative international order, a reformed multilateral system, sustainable development and inclusive growth.
That language matters. BRICS is not only presenting itself as an economic grouping. It is presenting itself as a reform coalition.
The Global South wants bargaining power
The Global South’s attraction toward BRICS should not be misunderstood as blind anti-Westernism. Many countries interested in BRICS continue to trade with the West, receive Western investment, work with Western institutions and maintain security ties with Western powers.
What they want is bargaining power.
A developing country does not want to be forced to choose between Washington, Beijing, Brussels, Moscow or New Delhi on every issue. It wants options. It wants finance from multiple sources. It wants infrastructure without dependency. It wants technology without political humiliation. It wants climate finance without moral lectures. It wants trade access without protectionist barriers. It wants security partnerships without losing sovereignty.
BRICS appeals because it gives countries another platform. It may not solve all their problems, but it gives them diplomatic room.
In a world of renewed great-power competition, diplomatic room itself is power.
BRICS is not a formal alliance
BRICS should not be treated as a NATO-like alliance or a single ideological bloc. It is not.
Its members differ sharply. India and China have serious strategic tensions. Russia and China want BRICS to push harder against Western dominance, while India prefers strategic autonomy and does not want BRICS to become an anti-Western camp. Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE bring Middle Eastern rivalries and energy interests into the grouping. Brazil and South Africa often emphasise development, reform and multilateralism. Indonesia brings Southeast Asian pragmatism.
This diversity is both the strength and weakness of BRICS.
It is a strength because BRICS can claim to represent a broad cross-section of the non-Western world. It is a weakness because internal differences make it hard to act as one.
The grouping is powerful as a platform of dissatisfaction. It is less powerful as a mechanism of collective decision-making.
The New Development Bank gives BRICS institutional substance
One reason BRICS matters more than many other forums is that it has created institutions, especially the New Development Bank.
The NDB was created to finance infrastructure and sustainable development in BRICS and other emerging markets and developing countries. Its project page says it has approved $42.9 billion in financing across 139 projects, including transport, water and sanitation, environmental protection, social infrastructure and digital infrastructure.
The NDB’s membership has also expanded beyond the original BRICS founders. Its current members include Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Bangladesh, the UAE, Egypt and Algeria, while Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Colombia and Ethiopia are listed as prospective members admitted by the Board of Governors pending formal accession.
This matters because institutions create continuity. Declarations can fade. Summits can be symbolic. But a development bank can finance projects, build pipelines, issue loans, mobilise capital and create financial habits.
If the NDB grows seriously, BRICS can become more than a diplomatic club. It can become part of the development finance architecture.
Development finance is the real battlefield
For the Global South, the most important question is not whether BRICS can issue dramatic statements. The question is whether it can improve access to finance.
Many developing countries face high debt burdens, expensive borrowing, climate adaptation costs and infrastructure gaps. Existing multilateral banks do not meet the full scale of need. Private capital often avoids poorer or riskier countries. Climate finance commitments remain insufficient. Debt restructuring remains slow.
BRICS has recognised this. The 2025 Rio Declaration described high debt levels, tighter financing conditions and weaknesses in the international financial architecture as constraints on development. It called for coordinated debt treatment involving official bilateral creditors, private creditors and multilateral development banks, with fair burden-sharing.
This is where BRICS has real relevance. If it can help lower financing costs, support local currency finance, expand development lending and give emerging economies more voice in global finance, its expansion will mean something material.
If it cannot, BRICS will remain a loud forum with limited delivery.
Reform of global institutions is the central demand
The strongest common agenda within BRICS is reform of global governance.
The Rio Declaration called for comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including the Security Council, to make it more democratic, representative, effective and efficient. It specifically linked Security Council reform to amplifying the voice of the Global South and recognised the aspirations of developing countries from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The declaration also called for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions, saying their governance structures must reflect the transformation of the global economy. It urged greater voice and representation for emerging markets and developing economies in the IMF and World Bank, including through quota and shareholding reforms.
This is the heart of the BRICS argument: institutions created in the twentieth century cannot indefinitely govern a twenty-first-century world without reform.
The Global South is not only asking to be consulted. It is asking to be represented.
BRICS expansion gives Africa greater visibility
Africa’s place in BRICS has changed significantly.
For years, South Africa was the only African member. Now Egypt and Ethiopia have joined as full members, while Nigeria and Uganda are partner countries. This gives Africa a stronger presence inside the grouping and connects BRICS more directly to African development priorities, debt concerns, food security, energy transition, climate vulnerability and infrastructure needs.
This matters because Africa is central to the future of the Global South. It has the youngest population, major mineral resources, fast-growing cities, climate vulnerability, energy access challenges and enormous infrastructure requirements. Yet Africa remains under-represented in major global institutions.
BRICS cannot claim to speak for the Global South if Africa is marginal. Expansion gives Africa more space, but the real test is whether African members shape the agenda or merely add numbers.
Representation must mean influence, not decoration.
Indonesia’s entry changes the Indo-Pacific equation
Indonesia’s entry as a full BRICS member is particularly important.
Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and a major Indo-Pacific actor. Brazil, as BRICS chair in 2025, announced Indonesia’s admission after consensus approval by BRICS members, and Reuters reported that Jakarta viewed its membership as support for the interests of the Global South.
Indonesia’s entry gives BRICS a stronger Southeast Asian dimension. It also makes the grouping harder to dismiss as simply China-Russia-led or anti-Western. Indonesia is a pragmatic, non-aligned, regionally influential state with its own tradition of balancing major powers.
For India, Indonesia’s membership is also important. It creates an opportunity to work with a major Indo-Pacific democracy inside BRICS and prevent the grouping from being dominated by any single strategic line.
The energy dimension is growing
The inclusion of major West Asian energy producers and energy-linked economies changes BRICS’ strategic weight.
Saudi Arabia, Iran and the UAE bring oil, gas, sovereign wealth, regional politics and energy transition questions into the grouping. This gives BRICS deeper relevance in energy markets, but also introduces complications. These countries do not share identical security interests. Their relations with the United States, China, Russia and India differ. Their regional rivalries cannot be ignored.
For the Global South, energy security remains central. Many developing countries need affordable fuel, investment in renewables, grid expansion, storage, green hydrogen and climate-resilient infrastructure. BRICS can become a useful platform if it links energy security with just transition.
But if energy cooperation becomes only a geopolitical bargaining tool, the development value will be limited.
BRICS and de-dollarisation: ambition meets reality
BRICS is often associated with de-dollarisation. The reality is more complex.
Many BRICS countries want to increase trade in local currencies and reduce vulnerability to dollar dominance, sanctions and payment-system pressure. That desire has grown after the weaponisation of financial infrastructure in global conflicts. But a common BRICS currency is not a serious near-term project.
Reuters reported in January 2025 that the Kremlin said BRICS was not planning its own currency and that discussions were focused instead on investment platforms and financial cooperation. In January 2026, Reuters reported that India’s central bank had proposed linking BRICS countries’ official digital currencies to make cross-border trade and tourism payments easier, potentially reducing reliance on the dollar.
This distinction is important. Local currency settlement is realistic in some bilateral trade. Payment interoperability is worth exploring. But replacing the dollar as the global reserve currency is far more difficult.
The dollar is not dominant only because the United States wants it to be. It is dominant because of liquidity, trust, financial depth, legal infrastructure, military power, habit and global market design. BRICS can reduce dependence at the margins, but it cannot replace the dollar by declaration.
India’s role is to balance ambition and realism
India has a special role inside BRICS.
It is one of the founding members. It is a major Global South voice. It has strong relations with the West but also values strategic autonomy. It wants reform of global institutions but does not want a world order dominated by China. It supports local currency trade where practical but does not want BRICS reduced to anti-dollar rhetoric.
India’s 2026 BRICS presidency gives New Delhi an opportunity to shape the grouping’s next phase. The official BRICS India 2026 platform says India’s chairship is built around “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability,” with pillars including resilience, digital public infrastructure, emerging technologies, development finance, institutional governance reform, climate action and green finance.
This is the right direction for India. It should make BRICS practical, not theatrical.
India’s interest is not in turning BRICS into an anti-Western bloc. India’s interest is in using BRICS to push reform, expand development finance, strengthen South-South cooperation, support multipolarity and protect its own strategic space.
The China question cannot be avoided
China is the largest economic power inside BRICS. That creates both opportunity and anxiety.
On one hand, China’s economic scale gives BRICS weight. Without China, BRICS would be far less important. China brings finance, trade, industrial capacity, technology, infrastructure experience and geopolitical reach.
On the other hand, many members do not want BRICS to become a China-led bloc. India certainly does not. Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, the UAE and others also have reasons to preserve autonomy.
This is the core internal tension of BRICS expansion. The grouping becomes stronger when China’s weight is included. It becomes weaker if China’s weight becomes domination.
For BRICS to succeed, it must remain multipolar internally. A bloc that demands democratic global governance outside but becomes hierarchical inside will lose credibility.
Russia sees BRICS differently from India
Russia’s view of BRICS has been shaped by sanctions, confrontation with the West and the Ukraine war. Moscow wants BRICS to accelerate alternatives to Western financial and political systems.
India’s approach is different. India wants reform, not rupture. It wants autonomy, not bloc politics. It wants to work with BRICS, the G20, the Quad, the West, the Global South, the UN system and regional groupings simultaneously.
This difference matters because BRICS expansion will be judged by whether it becomes a constructive reform platform or merely a shelter for anti-Western grievance.
The Global South needs reform of the world order. It does not need a new rigid bloc replacing an old one.
BRICS gives the Global South psychological power
One of the less visible effects of BRICS expansion is psychological.
For many developing countries, joining or partnering with BRICS signals that they are not alone. It tells them that the world is no longer fully controlled by the old centres of power. It gives them a stage where their concerns are not treated as secondary.
This psychological power matters in diplomacy. A country negotiating with creditors, climate institutions, trade partners or great powers behaves differently when it knows it has alternatives. Even if BRICS does not directly solve its problems, the existence of another forum changes bargaining confidence.
The Global South’s search for voice is partly about material power. But it is also about dignity.
BRICS offers the dignity of being heard by peers.
The counter-view: BRICS may become too incoherent
A serious article must recognise the strongest criticism of BRICS expansion: the larger BRICS becomes, the harder it may be to act.
The original five already had major differences. The expanded grouping contains even more contradictions: India-China tensions, Saudi-Iran rivalry, Russia-West confrontation, democratic-authoritarian divides, energy exporter-importer tensions, and different approaches to the United States.
A larger BRICS may produce broader symbolism but weaker consensus. It may issue long declarations but avoid hard decisions. It may become a platform where every member supports reform in theory but protects narrow national interests in practice.
This criticism is valid.
Expansion gives BRICS legitimacy, but it also creates coordination problems. A grouping with too many divergent interests can become a stage rather than an engine.
The future of BRICS depends on whether it can identify practical areas of cooperation despite political differences.
What BRICS can realistically achieve
BRICS should not try to become everything at once.
It can realistically advance five agendas.
First, it can push global governance reform, especially UN Security Council reform, IMF quota reform, World Bank shareholding reform and greater Global South representation.
Second, it can expand development finance through the New Development Bank, including more local currency lending, climate-resilient infrastructure finance and sustainable development projects.
Third, it can strengthen trade cooperation among emerging economies, especially by reducing barriers, improving logistics, supporting digital trade and defending special and differential treatment for developing countries at the WTO.
Fourth, it can build practical technology cooperation in digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence governance, health systems, food security and climate adaptation.
Fifth, it can give developing countries a platform to coordinate positions before major global negotiations.
These are achievable goals. A common currency, unified foreign policy or anti-Western alliance is not.
BRICS must avoid becoming only symbolic
The danger for BRICS is that it becomes impressive in size but weak in delivery.
A summit declaration does not build a power plant. A reform statement does not restructure debt. A membership expansion does not automatically create bargaining power. A local currency discussion does not replace financial infrastructure. A Global South slogan does not provide climate finance.
For BRICS expansion to matter, ordinary developing countries must see practical benefit: cheaper finance, better infrastructure, fairer debt discussions, stronger voice in institutions, more trade options, technology access and crisis cooperation.
If BRICS cannot produce material outcomes, its expansion will be remembered as diplomatic theatre.
The India angle
For India, BRICS expansion is both opportunity and challenge.
The opportunity is clear. BRICS gives India a platform to speak for global governance reform, development finance, climate justice and the Global South. It allows India to work with Africa, Latin America, West Asia and Southeast Asia in a wider non-Western setting. It supports India’s case for a more multipolar world.
But the challenge is equally clear. India must prevent BRICS from becoming a China-dominated or Russia-driven anti-Western bloc. It must keep the focus on reform, development and practical cooperation. It must work with Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, the UAE, Egypt and others to preserve balance inside the grouping.
India’s ideal BRICS is not anti-West. It is post-unipolar.
That distinction is crucial.
India can use BRICS to argue that the world needs more voices, not another camp. It can push a Global South agenda without surrendering its strategic autonomy. It can support reform without endorsing every anti-Western position. It can cooperate with China in multilateral forums while competing with it strategically elsewhere.
This is difficult, but it is exactly the kind of diplomatic complexity India must master.
The larger lesson
BRICS expansion reflects a deeper transformation in world politics.
The Global South no longer wants to be treated as a recipient of decisions made elsewhere. It wants to be a rule-shaper. It wants representation in the UN Security Council. It wants fairer voting power in the IMF and World Bank. It wants development finance that does not become debt suffocation. It wants climate justice. It wants technology access. It wants trade rules that do not lock poor countries into permanent dependency. It wants diplomatic autonomy in a world of competing great powers.
BRICS is not the complete answer to these demands. It is too divided, too unequal internally and too institutionally limited to replace the existing global order. But it is a powerful expression of dissatisfaction with that order.
That is why its expansion matters.
The rise of BRICS does not mean the West has disappeared. It means the West can no longer assume that its institutions, currencies, rules and priorities will go uncontested. It means developing countries are building platforms to negotiate harder. It means multipolarity is no longer a theory; it is becoming organisational.
BRICS began as an acronym created to describe economic potential.
Today, it has become a political language for countries that want voice without subordination, partnership without dependence, and reform without waiting for permission.
That is the real meaning of BRICS expansion.
Language note: “Start writing the tenth article” is correct.
