C Raja Mohan writes | Beyond BRICS and the Quad: Forget the grand Design, focus on the mundane

At a time when US President Donald Trump is upending American foreign policy and the global order, Delhi’s priorities must be pragmatic: To consolidate the economic and political opportunities at hand on the external front. That in turn is about pursuing India’s foremost task – self-strengthening at home. In an uncertain world, national resilience and state capability are more important than sweeping pronouncements about the world order. Over the last decade of Modi’s tenure, two global forums — BRICS and the Quad — have consumed a significant amount of India’s diplomatic bandwidth. Both are in focus this week. While the PM prepares for the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is in Washington for the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting.

That these meetings are taking place in the same week underscores India’s much-vaunted “multi-alignment” strategy. Yet the notion that India can navigate between great power rivalries freely and without cost has come under scrutiny.

Modi’s first foreign visit as PM was to the BRICS summit in Fortaleza, Brazil, in July 2014. The trip highlighted his enthusiasm for deeper ties with Russia, expanding engagement with China, and even the possibility of a grand bargain with Beijing on resetting bilateral relations. Just weeks later, he travelled to Washington to reboot and elevate ties with the US. India seems poised to improve ties with all the major powers at once. But India’s great power relations have not evolved linearly. Modi’s optimism about China was quickly tested. Within months of meeting Xi Jinping, he faced a crisis on the disputed China frontier. Two more followed — in 2017 and 2020 — leaving little room for doubt about Beijing’s strategic intentions. The widening power asymmetry with China became an inescapable reality and coping with it is a multi-generational task for India. As tensions with China deepened, India’s partnership with the US gained momentum. Meanwhile, Russia’s drift away from the West — after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2022 — pushed Moscow further into Beijing’s embrace, raising questions about its value for India as a regional balancer.

In the early 2000s, India sought to hedge against American dominance through BRICS. Delhi is now compelled to hedge against Chinese hegemony in Asia through the Quad. Promoting a “multipolar Asia” has become as important as seeking a “multipolar world”. Since reviving the Quad in 2017, Delhi has found the four-nation grouping more consequential to its geopolitical calculus than BRICS. Despite talk of building an “alternative” global order through BRICS, Indian policymakers are well aware that Moscow and Beijing are open to cutting bilateral deals with Washington. BRICS’s limitations were further exposed during the recent Israel-US strikes on Iran. Neither Moscow nor Beijing offered meaningful support to Iran. The gap between the anti-American rhetoric of Russia and China and their self-serving behaviour is increasingly obvious.

Moscow appears keen to work with Trump’s America to restructure the European security order, while Beijing is pursuing a major trade accord with Washington. India, too, is prioritising substance over symbolism. Despite the popular rhetoric of “de-dollarisation”, much of India’s political energy since Trump’s return has gone into finalising a bilateral trade deal that now appears imminent.

While BRICS looks less impressive today — despite expanded membership and a broader agenda —the Quad is not without its troubles. Trump’s “America First” approach, particularly his demand that allies raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP or more, is creating friction with Australia and Japan. Trump’s “trade first” regional strategy is threatening to undermine the historic security compact between the US and its Asian allies. More worrisome for the Quad is Trump’s openness to a “big beautiful deal” with China. Recent meetings in Geneva and London between top US and Chinese officials suggest a major thaw in commercial ties. Reports this week suggested Trump is eager to travel to Beijing later in the year accompanied by a large business delegation.

While his administration has many “China hawks”, Trump himself is not one. Given that US engagement in the Indo-Pacific until now has been rooted in the idea of balancing China, America’s allies are now questioning whether that remains Washington’s guiding principle. The Quad foreign ministers’ meeting this week may shed light and hopefully clear some of these growing doubts.

India has its own concerns. Trump’s surprise overture to Pakistan has caused unease in Delhi. But the answer to India’s new irritation with Trump does not lie with BRICS. The deepening strategic alliance between China and Pakistan is even more troubling than Trump’s Pakistan policy. Delhi is also watching the emerging trilateral cooperation between Beijing, Dhaka and Islamabad. There is speculation about the creation of a China-led regional grouping, outside the now dysfunctional SAARC. Beijing has already created an Indian Ocean forum of its own. In other words, the institutional architecture in India’s neighbourhood is unlikely to remain frozen.

China is moving to fill the regional vacuum created by India’s troubled ties with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Beijing is consolidating its economic presence in Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, and Namibia — all countries on Modi’s itinerary. While these nations are keen to diversify their partnerships, including with India, what matters to them is not ideological alignment but tangible cooperation in trade, technology and defence.

At a time when new uncertainties envelop India’s relations with great powers as well as neighbours, Delhi needs to focus on accelerating economic reforms at home, restoring domestic political unity, reclaiming the leadership of the Subcontinent, and strengthening ties with key developing nations.

The writer is distinguished fellow at the Council on Strategic and Defence Research, Delhi and contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express.