When BRICS leaders meet in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September, the table will include countries that represent almost half of the world’s population, but also some of the main geopolitical fractures of our time. Vladimir Putin will bring the burden of the war in Ukraine, Masoud Pezeshkian that of the conflict sweeping the Middle East, while Xi Jinping’s return to India comes after years of intense tension between the two Asian powers.

For Vas Shenoy, Chief Representative for Italy of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, founder of the Indo-Mediterranean Initiative and geopolitical analyst, it is precisely this heterogeneity that makes the summit particularly significant. The challenge of India’s presidency, he explains, is not to erase the divisions but to show that they do not necessarily have to prevent dialogue. Above all, India must avoid the BRICS becoming simply a new bloc opposed to the West.

Why is the BRICS summit in Delhi so important?

Not only for what will end up in the final declaration, but above all for who will be sitting around the same table. The eleven members represent almost half of the world’s population and about 40% of GDP at purchasing power parity. There are large demographic powers, oil and gas producers, African and Middle Eastern economies, and countries that demand a more representative international governance.

But the most important political point is different: many of these states are on opposite sides of the major contemporary geopolitical rifts. India’s task will not be to erase these divisions, but to show that they do not necessarily prevent dialogue.

Vladimir Putin will be in Delhi. What does his presence mean while the war in Ukraine continues?

Putin’s presence gives the summit a dimension that goes well beyond BRICS. The war in Ukraine has produced global consequences: European rearmament, sanctions, energy price instability, food security problems and strong effects on international trade.

The meeting between Narendra Modi and Putin will therefore carry particular weight. Defence, energy, civilian nuclear cooperation, technology and trade remain pillars of the Indo-Russian relationship. India continues to purchase large quantities of energy from Russia, and Moscow remains an important partner for the Indian armed forces.

Can India really play a mediating role?

Modi has something that is increasingly rare today: effective political channels with Moscow, Kyiv, Washington and the main European capitals. He can speak with Putin without denying that Russia invaded Ukraine and, at the same time, work with the United States without discarding a relationship with Moscow built over decades.

Delhi will be another opportunity to reaffirm India’s stance: a lasting solution cannot ignore negotiation and diplomacy.

Xi Jinping is also expected at the summit, his first visit to India in seven years. Can we speak of a thaw between India and China?

A Modi-Xi meeting will not resolve the problems between the two countries. The Himalayan border, China’s relations with Pakistan, India’s rapprochement with the United States and the Quad, trade imbalances and competition in the Indo-Pacific will continue to weigh heavily.

But India and China together represent about 2.8 billion people. They are strategic rivals and at the same time economies hard to separate. After the Galwan clash of 2020, the relationship passed through one of the worst phases of recent decades. The value of a new meeting therefore also lies in restoring a principle: competition between two vast civilizational states does not have to become a permanent antagonism.

If Putin brings the European war to Delhi, Pezeshkian brings the Middle Eastern one. What role can India play in that crisis?

For India it is by no means a distant conflict. Millions of Indian citizens live and work in the Gulf, a significant share of the country’s energy comes from the region, and the India–Middle East–Europe corridor, Imec, also depends on Middle Eastern stability.

New Delhi maintains a historical relationship with Iran while simultaneously building very strong strategic ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That is an almost unique position.

Indian strategic autonomy also consists of this: being able to talk with Tehran without breaking with Israel and the Gulf monarchies. Not asking every interlocutor to give up their identity or interests as a precondition for sitting at the table.

A few weeks ago Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a collective defence agreement in Mecca. How does that change regional balances?

It is an important development. The agreement states that an armed attack against any one of the three countries will be considered an attack against all. The political parallel with NATO’s Article 5 is evident, although the legal reference is to the right of collective self-defence provided for in the UN Charter.

The combination of the signatories’ capabilities is significant: Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO, Pakistan is a nuclear power, and Saudi Arabia adds financial capacity, political and religious influence, and a central role in the global energy system.

Talking already of an “Islamic NATO” would be premature. Ankara remains in NATO, Riyadh maintains a deep security relationship with Washington, and the three countries do not have coinciding interests on every dossier. But it is certainly a new element in the balances stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

And what is the relationship between this new pact and BRICS?

It is precisely an example of the complexity BRICS must learn to manage. Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt are all part of the same grouping. China is one of Iran’s main strategic partners and India has important relations with almost all the actors involved.

BRICS cannot resolve the wars of the Middle East, but they can help prevent the absence of dialogue from making the next escalation inevitable.

At the same time, India is in BRICS with China, Russia and Iran and in the Quad with the United States, Japan and Australia. Is that a contradiction?

No. It is the evolution of traditional Indian non-alignment toward what we now call strategic autonomy.

In the same years it has strengthened its presence in BRICS, India has deepened cooperation with the United States, Japan and Australia on maritime security, defence, strategic technologies, critical minerals, supply chains and the Indo-Pacific.

New Delhi must not become anti-American to speak with Putin, anti-Russian to work with Washington, or anti-Western to call for greater representation of the Global South. The logic is to avoid exclusive dependence on any one bloc.

Some now view BRICS primarily as an instrument of China and Russia to build an anti-Western front. Is that the main risk?

It is certainly one of the risks. The United States will be the great absentee from the Delhi table, but it does not necessarily have to become its adversary.

Russia, China and Iran may have an interest in pushing BRICS toward a more openly anti-Western character. India, however, has a strong interest in preventing that. For New Delhi, multipolarity does not mean replacing one hegemony with another.

If BRICS became simply an ideological bloc opposed to the West, they would lose an important part of their usefulness.

Why can the economic dimension help prevent this drift?

Because diplomacy also follows the economy. Alongside the political meetings, Delhi will host a significant programme dedicated to infrastructure, energy, technology, manufacturing, investment and supply chains.

India’s aim is to turn BRICS’ demographic weight into economic capacity: more investment, resilient value chains, greater integration among Global South countries and more representative international institutions.

And it is precisely the economy that shows the limits of a purely anti-Western logic. Businesses need secure routes, affordable energy, open markets, functioning financial systems and political stability. War destroys all those conditions.

The Indian presidency has chosen resilience, innovation, cooperation and sustainability as key words. What will the real test of Delhi be?

Understanding what BRICS intends to do with its weight. They can become another forum in which international divisions are reproduced, simply with the sides reversed. Or they can offer a space where states with radically different interests continue to seek what still unites them.

Almost half of humanity will be represented in the same room. Some participants are involved in wars, others are strategic rivals, and others still belong simultaneously to organisations that look in different directions.

The remarkable fact is not that they have already reached an agreement. It is that they can still talk to each other. It is not neutrality: it is the choice to keep channels open between worlds that risk no longer communicating.

The world does not need another bloc preparing for the next war. It needs places where the next war can still be avoided. That is why Delhi matters.