The BRICS summit that India is hosting this weekend is a good illustration of the trouble Indian foreign policy finds itself in. India is still trying to find a middle ground in global politics that has largely dissolved beneath its feet. But part of the problem is the failure to recognise this. BRICS illustrates this well. If it becomes an effective group at all, it is likely to become one that China will use to promote its interests and isolate India, and to undermine India’s main partners in the Indo-Pacific. India should have little interest in this pursuit, especially considering that it needs these partners because of its own relative weakness vis-à-vis China. India’s interest thus lies in sabotaging BRICS to the extent it can, lest it become the juggernaut that flattens Indian interests. There is no way to dance around this problem anymore.
This was always predictable. What China is attempting to do is what great powers have always done, which is use international groups and institutions to serve their own interests. It is foolish to think that international institutions have some kind of interest that stands above that of their member states. Nor are their decisions and actions the result of some political aggregation of various opposing national interests. They are, rather, deeply influenced by the relative material power of those involved in the process, which is a fancy way of saying that these groups are controlled by those who are more powerful.
Today, it is China, by a long stretch. No talk about multipolarity can hide the dispiriting disparity in power between China and the other members of BRICS. India is definitely not strong enough to control the group. It is possible that when BRICS was established two decades back, the difference in material power was not so great. That, and the possible excesses resulting from the concentration of power in American hands, may have diverted attention from the disparity of power within BRICS itself. But that is still no excuse for being blind to the glaring reality.
New Delhi should heed this reality most because it affects it directly.
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India must not help China gain
There are surely people in New Delhi and elsewhere who want BRICS to be a global anti-imperialist crusader, and who are willing to ignore or minimise the threat that China poses to India and the region.
They would rather engage in Quixotic attacks on fake windmills without realising that they are living in a fantasy world of great power chivalry. In the real world, India is neither a great power, nor are great powers particularly chivalrous when it comes to taking care of weaker powers. It is not Western imperialism that threatens India today, but China’s. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s statement that BRICS is not an anti-Western group hints at this.
Think of the practical issues that face India in BRICS, such as the issue of dollar dominance. Yes, the US does abuse the power of the dollar as the global reserve currency. But undermining the US dollar doesn’t help India. For the present, even China would not want this. But even if China wanted it, would India’s interests be served by having Beijing control the global currency, which is what would follow de-dollarisation?
This can be stretched across many other issues. In none does India benefit from China gaining at the expense of the US and the West. Whatever India’s own grievances with the US—of which, especially in the Trump era, there are undoubtedly many—undermining the US only undermines Indian interests because it will help China. And helping China gain in any way is a truly foolish move, especially if India does it deliberately, akin to cutting its nose to spite its face. This is now truly a zero-sum situation, and India no longer has the luxury of pretending it can somehow play both sides against the middle.
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A sabotage strategy for India
The question then is what India can actually do, considering it is a member of a group that is—whatever India pretends—clearly anti-Western in orientation and likely to side with China on most issues.
For most BRICS members, the logic is simple enough: they are likely to benefit from playing the US off against China in the emerging bipolar contest. African, South American and Middle Eastern countries are hardly likely to see a distant China as a threat. But this is not a luxury that India or other countries in China’s periphery have.
India’s purpose within BRICS then should be clear: to ensure that the group becomes nothing more than a useless talk-shop that is internally divided and an unviable vehicle for China’s great power ambitions. China can be expected to try to turn BRICS into just such a vehicle, but of course an effective one. And its power means that it is better placed than India to achieve its objectives for the group.
The one advantage India has is that it is easier to obstruct than to construct, and Indian diplomats have decades of practice in saying no, mostly against Western ambitions. It can now turn this against China. Beijing is likely to be a more difficult opponent than the West was because it will be a lot less patient and far more willing to use its economic and military power. Still, that shouldn’t change India’s objective, only make the path harder.
The expansion of BRICS might make this somewhat easier, though there are dangers too. There is a good strategic reason for the expansion, and it’s not the silly talk about making the group more representative. The real benefit India can hope for is that BRICS becomes less cohesive and effective as it expands, because that is the natural consequence of expansion.
Moreover, India can play upon the divisions that naturally arise from the admission of incompatible and divisive members. There are obvious disagreements between the various new members from the Middle East—they are currently busy lobbing missiles at each other. While not exactly as bad, there are disagreements between the invitees from Southeast Asia too, some of whom might become members. If the natural disagreements that come with an expanded organisation are not sufficient, India can (and should) actively use these divisions to undermine any possibility of BRICS becoming an effective body.
The danger is that India becomes isolated in an even larger BRICS. Avoiding this has to begin with recognising India’s real objective in BRICS: to make it ineffective.
Rajesh Rajagopalan is a professor of International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He tweets @RRajagopalanJNU. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)