BRICS: From Dialogue Forum to a Mechanism of Strategic Cooperation

by T.R. Krishnan

This article was written before the conclusion of the BRICS Summit at Durban. It is being published now as the validity of its contents remain undiminished till date.
An analysis of the course of development of the BRICS grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa leads one to the distinct conclusion that this organisation is gradually evolving from a dialogue forum with consultative functions into a body endowed with a fullscale mechanism of strategic cooperation in key economic and political issues.

The BRICS member-states are increasingly demonstrating their unquestioned adherence to the idea of a multipolar world while disapproving and opposing the US and its allies’ concerted moves to establish hegemony and dictatorship in international affairs. The five countries constituting the grouping are conscious of the importance of joint efforts in repulsing global pressures, challenges and threats. The BRICS organisation is now trying to form its own power-centre that would be effective in not only withstanding or resisting but also countering and combating Western domination.

It is necessary to further promote joint initiatives in finding a coordinated approach of the BRICS members to varied questions. As regards the formulation of the organisation’s long-term development strategy, it is quite natural that special attention is being paid to the institutionalisation of BRICS alongside realisation of the plans to establish a new International Development Bank.

In view of the fact that New Delhi is the only partner of the grouping that refrained from expressing its opinion on the Russian initiative to set up the BRICS Business Council, it is imperative to explain to the Indian policy-makers how this decision would benefit New Delhi as well. It must be underlined that together with the International Development Bank (which is also being mooted within the BRICS framework) this Council will be aimed at helping the member-states to utilise in practice all the benefits accruing from the mutually-compatible nature of their economies.

The BRICS Summit at Durban has attracted global attention because of its timing: the international scenario is currently characterised by growing political contradictions and the sharp polarisation due to differing attitudes to the Syrian crisis and the issue of Iran’s nuclear programme.

Against such a background, the BRICS members need to come out with cohesive, comprehensive and consolidated positions on such problems that would be manifest in the document emerging out of the forum. A common opinion on these subjects, shaped from the discussions at the BRICS Summit, should proceed from unequivocal denunciation of external military involvement in the Syrian conflict, including arms supply to the Syrian rebels, in the light of the opposition combine’s inability to select any leader who could be projected as a credible and legitimate representative of the Syrian people. At the same time it is worth noting that aggravation of the situation around Iran, strident war-like rhetoric from the side of Israel and the West, the toughening of international—and especially the introduction of unilateral—sanctions do not in any way help in moving towards peaceful adjustment in a bid to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem. Rather, such measures would impel the Iranians to think in terms of manufacturing their own weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The settlement of the dispute is possible only by means of negotiations as well as relaxation of the sanctions regime in exchange for concessions from the side of Tehran.

By cogently expressing such clear-cut joint views without any trace of ambiguity on questions of peace, stability and negotiated resolution of conflicts, the BRICS organisation will prove its worth as an effective geopolitical player, a unified platform enjoying global confidence. This will also allow the organisation to enhance its international economic influence through recognisable means.
What is striking, however, is that efforts are already underway to distort this holistic perspective of BRICS with vested interests painstakingly seeking to undermine the collective stand of the organisation by highlighting the larger-than-life politico-economic image of China under a new leadership that is yet to assert itself before the world at large. The objective is clear: to dwarf the other four participants so as to present the group as a disparate conglomerate instead of a viable collective marked by cohesion in spite of all their natural diversities.