MC EXPLAINER India's BRICS presidency year begins with a loaded question: What to do about Pakistan

New Delhi wants BRICS to amplify the Global South. It also wants to stop the bloc from becoming an anything-goes club, and Pakistan’s bid sits right at the fault line.

• India takes over BRICS presidency for 2026 amid expansion and membership debates
• India aims to set clear criteria for BRICS membership and limit rapid expansion
• India's opposition hinders Pakistan's BRICS bid due to lack of consensus.

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India has officially taken over the rotating BRICS presidency for 2026. That sounds procedural. It isn’t.

BRICS is bigger now, messier, and more contested than at any point in its history. Dozens of countries want in. Some want money. Some want leverage. Some want a seat at a table that no longer looks like a Western-only club.

And India,  as chair, will be expected to steer the bloc through its most sensitive question: how far does BRICS expand, and on what terms?

The answer matters for everyone. But it matters most for Pakistan.

BRICS is expanding but not in a straight line

BRICS began as five members: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. After the 2023 Johannesburg summit, the bloc invited six new members. Five, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, joined in 2024. Indonesia followed in early 2025.

The expansion made BRICS harder to ignore. World Bank-linked figures cited in reporting put the enlarged bloc at roughly half the world’s population and close to a third of global GDP.

It also produced a practical problem: BRICS now has a queue.

India’s 2026 chair comes with a clear temptation: set rules before the club swells again

This is where India’s presidency changes the story.

New Delhi has supported BRICS expansion in principle, but it has repeatedly signalled caution about the bloc becoming too large, too fast, or too politically incoherent. That caution now has a policy tool: the chair’s agenda-setting power.

India is expected to push for clear, transparent benchmarks for membership, economic size, development profile, institutional capacity, commitment to multilateralism, and insist expansion must strengthen BRICS rather than dilute it. That line has been echoed by analysts quoted by NikkeiAsia in recent reporting.

In plain English: India’s BRICS year is likely to be about consolidation, not a free-for-all.

Pakistan’s BRICS bid: why it’s stuck, even with China and Russia on its side

Pakistan has formally applied to join BRICS, and it has publicly pursued entry into the BRICS-backed New Development Bank (NDB) as well. For Islamabad, the attraction is obvious: alternative development financing and a broader diplomatic lane beyond IMF-style dependence.

But BRICS admits new members by consensus, meaning any country can block an applicant.

And BRICS’ agreed criteria include a big one: candidates must have good relations with all members. That alone is enough to freeze Pakistan’s bid because of its adversarial relationship with India.

Russia has signalled support for Pakistan’s application in public remarks. China is expected to back it. But if India does not agree, the bid cannot move.

India doesn’t have to say 'no.' It can simply never say 'yes.'

The workaround BRICS invented: 'partner countries'

To manage the surge of interest without blowing up internal cohesion, BRICS introduced a new category in 2024: partner countries.

Partners get access, meetings, dialogues, closer engagement, without full membership rights. Countries like Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan were included in early rounds, with Nigeria and Vietnam joining later.

Pakistan was not.

That absence is politically loud. If full membership is hard, even partnership can be controversial when 'good relations with all members' is the gatekeeper.

What India is really balancing in 2026

India’s BRICS presidency has two competing jobs:

Sell BRICS as a Global South platform that champions inclusive development and reforms global governance.

Prevent BRICS from turning into a bloc defined by China’s preferences, or from expanding in ways that weaken India’s room to manoeuvre.

Membership fights expose that tension.

Pakistan’s case is the most explosive example, but it’s not the only one. As more countries apply, India’s push for rules and consensus becomes a way to shape BRICS’ identity, who it represents, what it stands for, and who it quietly keeps out.

India will try to define BRICS before BRICS defines India

India’s chairmanship for 2026 will be judged less by speeches and more by what it locks in behind the scenes: membership criteria, partner pathways, and the limits of expansion.

Because BRICS is now big enough to matter. And messy enough that who gets in and who doesn’t.