The BRICS summit comes at a particularly important time for India. Even as there is turmoil around the world, its fast-paced economic growth and stability provide a reassurance of sorts not just in its neighbourhood, but in the larger Global South.

The somewhat belated announcement that President Xi Jinping will lead his country’s delegation to the 18th BRICS summit was widely welcomed. This has given the BRICS meet a certain heft. Equally importantly, it marks the first visit of the Chinese leader to this country since 2019, at a time when there is an uptick in ties between the two countries after a downturn arising from Chinese actions in eastern Ladakh in 2020.

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The optics matter more than the agenda items in this instance: A Chinese head of State on Indian soil is itself a data point in the slow, wary normalisation between the two capitals.

As a founder member of the organisation, now expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, India sees its role as carrying a special responsibility to advance the interests of the developing world, while safeguarding its own strategic autonomy. For this reason, it is anchoring the summit around four pillars — Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability — deliberately technocratic........

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