At BRICS, India’s Iran Challenge Is Navigation, Not Resolution
As the Grouping’s Presidency Comes at a Moment of Geopolitical Stress, New Delhi’s Diplomatic Choices Are Tested—But the Real Test Is the Viability of Its Multi-Aligned Strategy
India’s BRICS presidency comes at a moment of geopolitical stress that directly affects its diplomatic choices. Escalating tensions in the current Iran crisis have placed New Delhi’s foreign policy under pressure, even as they draw attention to the expanded BRICS grouping. Iran, one of the newest entrants into the BRICS+ framework, is now in direct military confrontation with the United States and Israel. The crisis tests whether the BRICS can act as a cohesive counterweight to Western power.
For India, however, the moment is less about the cohesion of BRICS and more about the viability of its own multi-aligned strategy under conditions of conflict. Can India maintain its relationships across competing power centres when those power centres are at war? Can it preserve its strategic autonomy when neutrality is no longer a comfortable option but a position that must be actively defended? These are the questions that the Iran crisis poses for Indian diplomacy.
The Contradictions of Indian Foreign Policy
India’s approach to foreign policy, entrenched in strategic autonomy, has always given precedence to flexibility over alignment, fostering ties across competing power centres. In recent years, this has translated into deepening strategic cooperation with the United States, expanding defence and technological ties with Israel, maintaining connectivity and energy interests with Iran, and preserving critical economic links with the Gulf. This has provided India with room for manoeuvre.
Yet it also means that moments of conflict bring these relationships into direct tension—as the Iran crisis illustrates. India cannot simultaneously support the US-Israel war effort and maintain its ties with Iran. It cannot align fully with the Gulf states’ security concerns while preserving its strategic partnership with Tehran. It cannot speak with one voice in BRICS while maintaining its bilateral relationships with members who are on opposite sides of the conflict.
These contradictions are not new. India has long navigated the competing demands of its relationships with the United States and Russia, with Israel and Palestine, with Iran and Saudi Arabia. But the Iran crisis is different. It is not a cold war but a hot war, and it directly implicates India’s partners on both sides.
BRICS as a Platform, Not a Bloc
BRICS has evolved into a plurilateral platform of diverse economies rather than a coalition for geopolitical alignment. Its emphasis has been on economic cooperation and institutional reform. The recent expansion, bringing in members from West Asia and Africa, has reinforced its positioning as a platform of the Global South, while also incorporating countries with increasingly divergent geopolitical alignments.
For India, this creates a more volatile diplomatic terrain. It must engage with the grouping’s aspirations while safeguarding its strategic partnerships. Such dilemmas are not unique to India; they reflect a broader feature of the emerging international order. In a world of fragmented multipolarity, no country can expect its coalition partners to share all its interests or align on all issues.
The Iran crisis further strains a global order where multilateralism already faces unprecedented challenges. It illustrates how the diffusion of power in the 21st century is producing a fragmented form of multipolarity rather than a new Cold War–style alignment. In such a setting, states respond primarily in line with their national interests, limiting the prospects for coordinated action. BRICS reflects this reality.
The Limits of Collective Action
It has been more than 20 days since the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, was assassinated, and the world is witnessing intense militarisation of the sea lanes of communication in the Strait of Hormuz. BRICS members have responded as individual actors with distinct geopolitical interests.
India co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution condemning Iran’s attack on Gulf Cooperation Council countries. This was a significant move, given India’s traditional reluctance to take sides in West Asian conflicts. But it was also a move that reflected India’s specific interests: maritime security, energy stability, and the safety of the 10 million Indian diaspora in the Gulf.
Other BRICS members have responded differently. Some view the crisis through the lens of balancing Western influence. Others are shaped more directly by regional security concerns and economic interdependence with the Gulf. There is no unified BRICS position on the Iran crisis, and there is unlikely to be one.
Lacking a collective security framework or unified foreign policy apparatus, BRICS functions more as a coordination platform than an agency determined to devise instruments of geopolitical action. This is not a failure of the grouping; it is a reflection of what the grouping is. BRICS was never intended to be a military alliance or a geopolitical bloc. It was designed as a forum for economic cooperation and institutional reform.
The New Diplomacy of Fragmented Multipolarity
States now interact across multiple competing partnerships simultaneously. Their cooperation tends to be issue-specific. This produces a landscape in which alignment is situational rather than structural, and where coalitions are better understood as flexible arrangements than fixed geopolitical camps.
For India, this underscores that its diplomatic choices are shaped not only by its own strategy, but also by the structural limits of the coalitions it engages with. India cannot make BRICS into something it is not. It cannot transform a plurilateral economic platform into a geopolitical bloc. What it can do is use the platform to manage diversity, to coordinate on issues where interests align, and to prevent the grouping from being fractured by conflicts that divide its members.
India’s Balancing Act
Having positioned itself as a voice of the Global South, New Delhi must balance these aspirations with the demands of its own strategic partnerships. In the present crisis, this is likely to translate into an emphasis on dialogue and de-escalation rather than alignment with any camp.
India’s role as BRICS host may therefore lie less in forging a unified geopolitical stance and more in managing diversity within the grouping. This is not a lesser role. In a world of fragmented multipolarity, the ability to manage diversity—to keep lines of communication open between adversaries, to find common ground on specific issues, to prevent conflicts from hardening into permanent divisions—is a crucial diplomatic skill.
India has demonstrated this skill in other contexts. It maintained relations with both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It has balanced its ties with Israel and Palestine for decades. It has navigated the competing demands of its relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Iran crisis is a test of whether this balancing act can survive the pressures of active conflict.
The Way Forward
India’s approach to the Iran crisis will be shaped by several considerations. First, energy security. India imports over 80 per cent of its crude oil, and a significant portion of those imports come from the Gulf. Any disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz directly affects India’s economy.
Second, diaspora safety. There are over 10 million Indians in the Gulf region, and their safety is a paramount concern. India cannot afford to alienate the Gulf states that host them.
Third, strategic partnerships. India’s deepening cooperation with the United States and Israel is a long-term strategic choice. But so is its relationship with Iran, which provides access to Central Asia and a counterbalance to Pakistan.
Fourth, multilateral engagement. India’s leadership of the Global South, expressed through platforms like BRICS, requires it to be seen as a voice for the interests of developing countries, not as a proxy for Western powers.
Navigating these competing considerations will require all of India’s diplomatic skill. There will be no perfect solution, no outcome that satisfies all partners, no stance that avoids criticism from some quarter.
Conclusion: The Art of Navigation
In a multipolar order defined by overlapping and competing alignments, the ability to navigate such contradictions—rather than resolve them—may well become the defining feature of India’s diplomacy. This is not a counsel of despair. Navigation is a skill, and it is a skill that India has developed over decades of managing competing relationships.
The Iran crisis is a test of that skill. It will not be the last test. As the international order fragments into multiple centres of power, with shifting alliances and situational alignments, the ability to navigate complexity will become increasingly valuable.
India’s role as BRICS host in this moment is therefore not about forcing the grouping into a unified geopolitical stance. It is about demonstrating that even in times of conflict, countries with divergent interests can find ways to cooperate. It is about showing that the Global South can have a voice that is not defined by alignment with any camp. It is about proving that strategic autonomy is not just a slogan but a practical approach to diplomacy.
The Iran crisis will pass, as all crises do. But the underlying challenge—how to navigate a world of fragmented multipolarity—will remain. India’s response to this crisis will be watched not only by its partners but by all those who look to the Global South for leadership in a world that no longer has a single centre of power.
Q&A: Unpacking India’s BRICS and Iran Challenge
Q1: What is the central challenge for India’s foreign policy during the Iran crisis?
A: The Iran crisis tests the viability of India’s multi-aligned strategy under conditions of active conflict. India has cultivated relationships across competing power centres: deepening strategic cooperation with the US, expanding defence ties with Israel, maintaining energy and connectivity interests with Iran, and preserving economic links with the Gulf. When these partners are at war, India must navigate the contradictions without sacrificing its strategic autonomy.
Q2: How does the Iran crisis affect BRICS as a grouping?
A: BRICS has evolved into a plurilateral platform of diverse economies rather than a coalition for geopolitical alignment. The recent expansion brought in members with increasingly divergent geopolitical alignments. In the Iran crisis, BRICS members have responded as individual actors with distinct interests. India co-sponsored a UNSC resolution condemning Iran’s attack on Gulf states; other members have taken different positions. BRICS lacks a collective security framework or unified foreign policy apparatus.
Q3: What is India’s approach likely to be during the Iran crisis?
A: India is likely to emphasise dialogue and de-escalation rather than alignment with any camp. It will prioritise maritime security, energy stability, and the safety of the 10 million Indian diaspora in the Gulf. Its role as BRICS host may lie less in forging a unified geopolitical stance and more in managing diversity within the grouping—keeping lines of communication open between adversaries and finding common ground on specific issues.
Q4: What does the author mean by “fragmented multipolarity”?
A: Fragmented multipolarity describes the emerging international order where power is diffused across multiple centres, but alignment is situational rather than structural. States interact across multiple competing partnerships simultaneously, and coalitions are better understood as flexible arrangements than fixed geopolitical camps. Unlike the Cold War’s bipolar order, today’s multipolarity does not produce clear dividing lines between camps.
Q5: What is the significance of India co-sponsoring a UNSC resolution condemning Iran’s attack on Gulf states?
A: This move was significant because it represented a departure from India’s traditional reluctance to take sides in West Asian conflicts. It reflected India’s specific interests: maritime security through the Strait of Hormuz, energy stability given India’s 80% dependence on oil imports, and the safety of the Indian diaspora. It demonstrates that India’s foreign policy is shaped by its own strategic calculations, not by alignment with any bloc.
