In mid-August, India hosted the eighth meeting of the BRICS Working Group on Ocean and Polar Science and Technology in Goa with eight of the bloc’s 10 members. They discussed joint ocean and polar research, climate monitoring, biodiversity, data-sharing and the training of young researchers. For a country steadily expanding its footprint in polar science, India chairing this meeting during its BRICS presidency was a notable moment.
It also raises a broader question: should deeper polar cooperation within BRICS gradually evolve into a role in Arctic governance? Or is the bloc’s real strength in complementing the region’s existing institutions rather than competing with them? For India, the second path looks far more promising. It allows New Delhi to keep expanding its Arctic research and practical projects through BRICS while continuing to engage with the established system of Arctic cooperation — combining several complementary formats rather than betting everything on one.
The Arctic Council remains the key platform for regional governance, built around the eight Arctic states, with indigenous organisations holding a distinct role. India has been an observer there since 2013, a status that keeps decision-making in the hands of Arctic states while still allowing meaningful input into working groups, scientific projects and broader discussions. That framework lets New Delhi deepen its scientific engagement without needing a seat at the governance table — what matters more, in practice, is the substance of India’s presence: research output, data access, participation in expeditions, and cooperation on energy, technology and connectivity.
BRICS offers something different. The Goa meeting illustrated the niche the bloc has carved out: a mechanism for scientific and technological cooperation, not a new layer of Arctic governance. Discussions centred on genuinely transboundary questions — ocean observation, climate, coastal resilience, polar biodiversity and research capacity — where the value lies in combining complementary expertise.
Russia brings decades of polar research experience and infrastructure; India contributes the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research’s work linking polar processes to the monsoon and South Asian climate. China has built a substantial polar research base. Brazil and South Africa add a Global South and southern-hemisphere perspective. Meanwhile, the newer members such as Indonesia, Egypt and the UAE extend the bloc’s reach into tropical-polar climate links and broader ocean science.
Handled this way, BRICS does not duplicate the Arctic Council — it widens the geographic and scientific base of polar cooperation.
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More room to manoeuvre cooperation
A third track — bilateral cooperation with Russia — is where general declarations start turning into concrete projects. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s July 2024 visit to Moscow, the two countries signed a five-year programme on trade, economic and investment cooperation in Russia’s Far East that also folded in principles for cooperation in the Russian Arctic zone, treating the Arctic as an extension of an already-established economic relationship rather than a separate geopolitical track.
This summer, India’s National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research and Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute signed a memorandum of understanding to expand their cooperation in the Arctic. The Northern Sea Route is also part of the official discussions, but for now it is one of the many areas of cooperation rather than being a firm priority. It is developing alongside a wider agenda covering the Russian Far East, regular Arctic consultations and India’s observer role at the Council. It is not being treated as a make-or-break issue on its own.
This layered approach fits comfortably within India’s broader tradition of strategic autonomy — maintaining ties with multiple centres of power and institutions rather than anchoring policy to any single one. Seen this way, the Arctic Council and BRICS are not competitors but complements: different memberships and mandates that let India engage with the established system of Arctic cooperation while simultaneously building new scientific and technological ties with its BRICS partners.
Keeping several institutional tracks running in parallel simply gives New Delhi more room for manoeuvre — the Council for engagement with Arctic states, BRICS for science and technology links with Russia and other members, and bilateral cooperation for translating shared interests, chiefly in polar science, training and Far East cooperation with Russia, into concrete outcomes.
The Arctic’s global significance is only growing as climate, economic and transport shifts ripple far beyond the region itself. But that does not automatically mean Arctic governance itself needs to globalise. For New Delhi, the more promising path is steadily deepening substantive engagement — filling out its Arctic presence with concrete projects at different levels, drawing on its Arctic Council observer status, BRICS’s scientific and technological mechanisms, and bilateral partnerships with Arctic states.
India does not need a “BRICS for Arctic governance.” It needs a BRICS that helps it cooperate in the Arctic. The distinction may look small, but it will likely determine whether BRICS becomes another arena for geopolitical rivalry in the region — or keeps its real advantage: the ability to build practical cooperation even where its members’ political positions do not always align.
Maria Lagutina, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Department of World Politics, St. Petersburg State University; Leading Research Fellow, Center for Asian-Arctic Studies, Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences; Editor-in-Chief, PORA journal ‘Arctic 2035: Current Issues, Challenges, and Solutions’; PORA expert. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)