BRICS Summit 2026 analysis: How India secured five key diplomatic wins, restored consensus, condemned the Pahalgam attack and kept BRICS from becoming anti-US

METRO TIME Web Desk:  The real test for India at the 18th BRICS Summit was never simply whether leaders could issue another declaration. The harder question was whether New Delhi could hold together an increasingly divided grouping, shaped by wars, competing interests in West Asia and growing rivalry between China, Russia and the United States.

On that count, India appears to have done reasonably well.

The summit came just months after BRICS foreign ministers failed to agree on a joint statement in Rio de Janeiro over differences on the Middle East. The problem was compounded by the group’s expansion from five members to 11, bringing far more divergent strategic interests into the room.

Yet, on September 12, leaders adopted the New Delhi Declaration by consensus. More importantly for India, the document condemned the Pahalgam Terror Attack while the broader BRICS agenda remained centred on development and Global South concerns rather than becoming an overtly anti-Western platform