BRICS and India’s ideology

What is the issue?

India being an active participant in BRICS forum, feels harder to address Chinese led globalisation.

What is the significance of BRICS?

• Building a multipolar world has been one of the central themes of India’s foreign policy.
• The construction of a “multipolar Asia” or balancing China is turning out to the search for a “multipolar world”.
• BRICS has been the main forum for the pursuit of that objective.
• India was tempted to privilege the BRICS over the partnership with the West.
• Many in India see the BRICS forum as a continuation of the past attachment to non-alignment and third worldism.
• China sees BRICS as an instrument to expand its own global economic influence.

What are the issues with BRICS?

• The willingness of both Russia and China to cut deals with the US makes the BRICS less about ideological posturing, more about repositioning India in changing great power equations.
• The internal changes within the BRICS and external environment altered the dynamics of the BRICS and posing new challenges for India’s engagement with the forum.
• India seems more inclined towards judging BRICS by implications for its national interest rather than the metric of a presumed ideological correctness.

How china intervenes India’s Ideology?

• China’s rapid rise has compelled India to rethink the virtues of a multipolar world.
• It becomes a lot more assertive in the bilateral disputes.
• China’s economic weight in BRICS is nearly $12 trillion is now more than twice that of the other four members put together.
• Rise of China dramatically altered the orientation of the BRICS, the internal favour of the nation within the forum has elevated.
• B&RI has become the main vehicle for Beijing’s economic power projection, has added to India’s concerns about China’s rise.
• India has a hard time endorsing the free market, due to a massive annual trade deficit of nearly $50 billion with China.

How the issues can be addressed?

• India should conscious of the fact that the BRICS is not about North-South politics.
• Nor is it about staying away from the great powers and maintaining equidistance between them.
• India should stand up to China where necessary and cooperating with it where possible.
• Retrieving the essence of the long-standing partnership with Russia and recognising its own imperatives is needed.
• Deepening the strategic ties with Washington and acknowledging its sharp internal divisions is important to counter china.

Source: Indian Express