Link to article: https://apnews.com/article/india-russia-putin-modi-brics-summit-delhi-f7735ac233c7e8db8ac021c53a3eef8a
In New Delhi, India, a BRICS conference is taking place from September 12 to September 13. On September 11, one day before the convene, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, met with Vladimir Putin and Masoud Pezeshkian, who are the presidents of Russia and Iran. Modi discussed one on one in a private discussion with both Putin and Pzeshkian separately about strengthening relationships with India specifically, rather than BRICS as a whole. While there were no real negotiations in the one on one discussions, it served to strengthen relationships between the nations before the BRICS summit. The main BRICS summit, consisting of 11 countries, discussed the Ukraine war, aggressive U.S. tariffs and sanctions, and the U.S. Iran war.
The one on one meetings served as a diplomatic tool to strengthen individual ties between the invited nation and India, most likely to find common ground before the summit so they could already have preexisting compromises, like how India would continue buying Russian oil, but diversify the purchasing of military equipment and shift away from Russia as their main source of armaments. The personal meeting with Iran also served a similar purpose, although it was more likely to show appreciation for coming during such a crisis in their country, express gratitude for such meaningful contributions in BRICS, and to probe common grounds so that during the summit India could find common ground between them and nations that disliked them, like the UAE. This summit was a massive diplomatic victory for India, not only because they strengthened relationships with many of their greatest economic ally’s, while maintaining positive relations with those ally’s enemies, (ike Russia and Ukraine as well as Iran and Israel), but India also got many of the BRICS members which do not get along, like Iran and the UAE, to find common ground and gain a common consensus. This made the BRICS summit incredibly productive, which will have seriously positive diplomatic, economic, and to some extent, militaristic repercussions around the world.
This meeting has serious consequences for questioning the U.S. led hegemony, which was unquestioned for decades. By personally inviting Putin privately, India legitimizes Russia as a global participant, which Western sanctions, narratives, and alliances formed against Russia have worked tirelessly to prevent, largely due to ideological differences and actions in Crimea and Ukraine. Similarly, inviting Iran beforehand “despite the challenging circumstances”, referring to the Iran war, shows that Iran’s government retains a sovereign hold on their own country, and is diplomatically significant. Parallely, the BRICS summit as a whole was a massive diplomatic success of “developing” countries, not traditional Western powers, most of which are ideologically different to the Western led global order, which could question the institution the West has maintained since the exploration age. This conference will promote globalisation between the alliance members, but due to ideological differences and tensions, there might be a lessening on reliances of the West economically, which could increase domestic focus on missing goods.