The BRICS meeting in Delhi underlines India’s increasingly difficult diplomatic predicament: how to maintain close ties with countries that are often on opposite sides of the world’s biggest geopolitical divides. India has invested heavily in its relationship with the United States and other Western powers, while simultaneously maintaining longstanding strategic ties with Russia and seeking to stabilise its complicated relationship with China.
This balancing act is not a sign of indecision. It reflects India’s understanding that its national interests cannot be tied permanently to any one camp. Washington remains important for technology, investment, defence and trade. Moscow remains significant for defence supplies and energy, while China is an unavoidable economic and geopolitical neighbour. BRICS gives India a platform to engage these powers without accepting the idea that it must choose one side.
But the space for such strategic autonomy is becoming narrower. The sharper rivalry between the US and China, the war in Ukraine, tensions in West Asia and the emergence of competing economic blocs are making neutrality increasingly difficult. Every diplomatic choice risks being interpreted as taking sides.
The challenge for Delhi is therefore not simply to remain friendly with everyone, but to ensure that friendship does not become dependence. India’s real test will be whether it can extract economic, technological and strategic benefits from competing partnerships while preserving the freedom to disagree with all of them when its interests demand it.
Shailesh Shriram Tanpure, Porvorim
