Bhaijaan
Hall of Famer
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2011
- Runs
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A few notes before the polished version: this is clearly intended as a polemical opinion piece, which is a legitimate genre, so I've sharpened the argumentation accordingly. I've also grounded the India-Pakistan military claims more accurately — both sides declared victory amid considerable misinformation, and independent analysts note the conflict was genuinely escalatory on both sides — though a US Congressional report did explicitly state that Pakistan achieved military success over India, with the conflict inflicting sharp material losses on India while Pakistan emerged with comparatively light setbacks . I've used that framing. I've also removed the "treacherous snake" line — it weakens the credibility of an otherwise substantive argument. Here's the polished version:
BRICS was conceived as a counterweight to the G7 — a coalition of rising powers capable of offering an alternative to Western-dominated global order. That mission demands more than economic heft. It demands moral clarity, strategic coherence, and the willingness to act. On all three counts, India has been found wanting. The question is no longer academic: does India still belong at the BRICS table, or has it forfeited that seat through a decade of calculated non-commitment?
India's foreign policy apologists dress up its approach in flattering language — "strategic autonomy," "multi-alignment," a proud tradition of non-interference. Strip away the euphemisms, and what remains is something more troubling: a country that has consistently refused to take a principled stand during the defining crises of the multipolar era, while maximising its own economic extraction from every conflict it declines to help resolve.
In the Russia-Ukraine war, India quietly became one of Russia's most important oil buyers, purchasing discounted crude at scale while publicly maintaining studied neutrality. It abstained on key UN votes, refused to condemn the invasion, yet simultaneously signalled its credentials to Washington as a responsible partner and Indo-Pacific counterweight to China. It played both sides, profited from both sides, and committed to neither.
In West Asia, as Iran faced an existential confrontation with Israel and the United States, India again retreated into its familiar crouch of carefully worded statements and commercial calculation. A nation that portrays itself as a civilisational power with a unique voice in the Global South could not find the moral clarity to support a country facing military assault.
This is not neutrality. Neutrality is a principled position. What India practises is opportunism dressed as statesmanship — war profiteering wrapped in the language of peace. The cumulative effect has been devastating to its credibility. Nations that once held genuine expectations of India as an emerging moral force — Russia, Iran, the broader Global South — have been systematically let down. At the same time, India's endless hedging has rendered it an unreliable partner for the West as well. It has managed the remarkable feat of being distrusted by everyone, while being indispensable to no one.
For decades, India projected itself as the dominant military power of South Asia, investing billions in Western and Russian platforms while its neighbours were dismissed as lesser threats. That image took a serious blow in May 2025.
When India launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, it anticipated a swift demonstration of overwhelming force. What followed was something far more complicated. Pakistan's air force — equipped with Chinese platforms including the J-10C, PL-15 missiles, and HQ-9 air defence systems — performed devastatingly well. A US Congressional report was unambiguous: Pakistan's forces achieved military success over India, marking the first active combat use of China's modern weapons systems, and Pakistan's ability to shoot down Indian aircraft — including Rafales — became a selling point in China's post-conflict defence diplomacy. Defence Security Asia Pakistan's National Assembly celebrated what it regarded as a Pakistani victory, and Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir was promoted to Field Marshal for his leadership during the conflict. Wikipedia
The conflict shattered the narrative of Indian air superiority and raised profound questions about the billions spent on Western hardware. A country that cannot secure air dominance against a neighbour it has long regarded as inferior has no credible claim to regional military leadership — let alone a seat at a table meant to anchor a new world order.
Proponents of India's BRICS membership lean heavily on economics: 1.4 billion consumers, a large and growing market, demographic dividend, etc. This is real, and it is essentially the limit of India's value proposition.
India remains a massive importer of weapons, energy, and technology, and an exporter of cheap commodities and low-margin services. It has not produced a single globally transformative product or platform — no technology firm of world-class standing, no manufacturing ecosystem comparable to China's, no original innovation that has reshaped an industry. Its "soft power" — Bollywood, yoga, cricket — is culturally significant but geopolitically weightless. Countries engage with India because its market is too large to ignore, not because India brings anything irreplaceable to the strategic table.
BRICS cannot be built around a country that is merely large. It must be built around countries that are genuinely consequential — militarily, diplomatically, and in terms of their willingness to stand for the principles the bloc claims to embody.
Contrast India's record with that of Iran and Pakistan, two nations consistently dismissed by the Western commentariat, yet whose recent performances demand reassessment.
Iran has faced down the most powerful military alliance in history. Confronted with US maximum pressure, comprehensive sanctions, and direct Israeli military action, Tehran did not capitulate, did not pivot, and did not hedge. It developed its own military-industrial base under siege conditions, maintained its strategic relationships, and forced its adversaries to negotiate from a position of greater respect than they had originally intended. Whatever one's views on Iran's domestic politics, its geopolitical resilience and diplomatic sophistication — the ability to engage across blocs without surrendering core positions — is formidable.
Pakistan emerged from the May 2025 conflict with its deterrence posture strengthened and its military reputation dramatically enhanced. Beyond the battlefield, it has demonstrated the kind of flexible, principled engagement across great-power competition that India aspires to but fails to deliver. It has managed relationships with China, the Gulf states, and even the United States with a degree of strategic intelligence that belies its economic constraints.
Both nations have something India conspicuously lacks: skin in the game. They have taken real risks, made hard choices, and emerged from pressure stronger rather than more ambiguous.
BRICS faces a defining question about what it is for. If it is simply a loose economic grouping for large emerging markets, India belongs and the conversation ends there. But if BRICS is to function as a genuine counterweight to the G7 — a coalition with the military credibility, diplomatic coherence, and moral seriousness to offer the world an alternative — then its membership must reflect those standards.
A bloc anchored by a country whose defining foreign policy trait is profitable non-commitment is a bloc that will never be taken seriously. A country that profits from every war it refuses to take a side in, that was bested militarily by a smaller neighbour it had long underestimated, and that has squandered the trust of allies who genuinely needed it, is not a pillar of a new world order. It is a liability dressed up as an asset.
Iran and Pakistan are imperfect. Every nation is. But they are consequential in ways that matter — strategically, militarily, and in terms of their demonstrated willingness to act on principle under pressure. BRICS needs that kind of gravity at its core.
The bloc's credibility depends on the honesty to ask that question openly — and the courage to act on the answer.
Has India Forfeited Its Place in BRICS? The Case for Iran and Pakistan
BRICS was conceived as a counterweight to the G7 — a coalition of rising powers capable of offering an alternative to Western-dominated global order. That mission demands more than economic heft. It demands moral clarity, strategic coherence, and the willingness to act. On all three counts, India has been found wanting. The question is no longer academic: does India still belong at the BRICS table, or has it forfeited that seat through a decade of calculated non-commitment?
A Pattern of Strategic Opportunism
India's foreign policy apologists dress up its approach in flattering language — "strategic autonomy," "multi-alignment," a proud tradition of non-interference. Strip away the euphemisms, and what remains is something more troubling: a country that has consistently refused to take a principled stand during the defining crises of the multipolar era, while maximising its own economic extraction from every conflict it declines to help resolve.
In the Russia-Ukraine war, India quietly became one of Russia's most important oil buyers, purchasing discounted crude at scale while publicly maintaining studied neutrality. It abstained on key UN votes, refused to condemn the invasion, yet simultaneously signalled its credentials to Washington as a responsible partner and Indo-Pacific counterweight to China. It played both sides, profited from both sides, and committed to neither.
In West Asia, as Iran faced an existential confrontation with Israel and the United States, India again retreated into its familiar crouch of carefully worded statements and commercial calculation. A nation that portrays itself as a civilisational power with a unique voice in the Global South could not find the moral clarity to support a country facing military assault.
This is not neutrality. Neutrality is a principled position. What India practises is opportunism dressed as statesmanship — war profiteering wrapped in the language of peace. The cumulative effect has been devastating to its credibility. Nations that once held genuine expectations of India as an emerging moral force — Russia, Iran, the broader Global South — have been systematically let down. At the same time, India's endless hedging has rendered it an unreliable partner for the West as well. It has managed the remarkable feat of being distrusted by everyone, while being indispensable to no one.
The Military Myth, Exposed
For decades, India projected itself as the dominant military power of South Asia, investing billions in Western and Russian platforms while its neighbours were dismissed as lesser threats. That image took a serious blow in May 2025.
When India launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, it anticipated a swift demonstration of overwhelming force. What followed was something far more complicated. Pakistan's air force — equipped with Chinese platforms including the J-10C, PL-15 missiles, and HQ-9 air defence systems — performed devastatingly well. A US Congressional report was unambiguous: Pakistan's forces achieved military success over India, marking the first active combat use of China's modern weapons systems, and Pakistan's ability to shoot down Indian aircraft — including Rafales — became a selling point in China's post-conflict defence diplomacy. Defence Security Asia Pakistan's National Assembly celebrated what it regarded as a Pakistani victory, and Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir was promoted to Field Marshal for his leadership during the conflict. Wikipedia
The conflict shattered the narrative of Indian air superiority and raised profound questions about the billions spent on Western hardware. A country that cannot secure air dominance against a neighbour it has long regarded as inferior has no credible claim to regional military leadership — let alone a seat at a table meant to anchor a new world order.
What India Actually Offers
Proponents of India's BRICS membership lean heavily on economics: 1.4 billion consumers, a large and growing market, demographic dividend, etc. This is real, and it is essentially the limit of India's value proposition.
India remains a massive importer of weapons, energy, and technology, and an exporter of cheap commodities and low-margin services. It has not produced a single globally transformative product or platform — no technology firm of world-class standing, no manufacturing ecosystem comparable to China's, no original innovation that has reshaped an industry. Its "soft power" — Bollywood, yoga, cricket — is culturally significant but geopolitically weightless. Countries engage with India because its market is too large to ignore, not because India brings anything irreplaceable to the strategic table.
BRICS cannot be built around a country that is merely large. It must be built around countries that are genuinely consequential — militarily, diplomatically, and in terms of their willingness to stand for the principles the bloc claims to embody.
The Case for Iran and Pakistan
Contrast India's record with that of Iran and Pakistan, two nations consistently dismissed by the Western commentariat, yet whose recent performances demand reassessment.
Iran has faced down the most powerful military alliance in history. Confronted with US maximum pressure, comprehensive sanctions, and direct Israeli military action, Tehran did not capitulate, did not pivot, and did not hedge. It developed its own military-industrial base under siege conditions, maintained its strategic relationships, and forced its adversaries to negotiate from a position of greater respect than they had originally intended. Whatever one's views on Iran's domestic politics, its geopolitical resilience and diplomatic sophistication — the ability to engage across blocs without surrendering core positions — is formidable.
Pakistan emerged from the May 2025 conflict with its deterrence posture strengthened and its military reputation dramatically enhanced. Beyond the battlefield, it has demonstrated the kind of flexible, principled engagement across great-power competition that India aspires to but fails to deliver. It has managed relationships with China, the Gulf states, and even the United States with a degree of strategic intelligence that belies its economic constraints.
Both nations have something India conspicuously lacks: skin in the game. They have taken real risks, made hard choices, and emerged from pressure stronger rather than more ambiguous.
What BRICS Must Decide
BRICS faces a defining question about what it is for. If it is simply a loose economic grouping for large emerging markets, India belongs and the conversation ends there. But if BRICS is to function as a genuine counterweight to the G7 — a coalition with the military credibility, diplomatic coherence, and moral seriousness to offer the world an alternative — then its membership must reflect those standards.
A bloc anchored by a country whose defining foreign policy trait is profitable non-commitment is a bloc that will never be taken seriously. A country that profits from every war it refuses to take a side in, that was bested militarily by a smaller neighbour it had long underestimated, and that has squandered the trust of allies who genuinely needed it, is not a pillar of a new world order. It is a liability dressed up as an asset.
Iran and Pakistan are imperfect. Every nation is. But they are consequential in ways that matter — strategically, militarily, and in terms of their demonstrated willingness to act on principle under pressure. BRICS needs that kind of gravity at its core.
The bloc's credibility depends on the honesty to ask that question openly — and the courage to act on the answer.
