BRICS moment

The BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, is set to emerge as a redefining moment in realpolitik. The Kremlin is already boasting it as a success story in terms of ushering in multilateralism and chalking out an alternate path for emerging economies. This pitches the alliance in confrontation with the West whose hegemonic designs are now openly being questioned, especially in the wake of wars, the pandemic and an unjust financial order.

Russian President Vladimir Putin – by hoisting leaders such as Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Cyril Ramaphosa and Masoud Pezeshkian, apart from receiving UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Moscow – is inevitably challenging the West-dominated decorum and it remains to be seen how effectively the new bloc emerges in terms of prescribing a policy that comes to address revulsions and disgust prevalent in the contemporary world order. The agenda, per se, at the three-day moot is to create a BRICS-led payment system to rival SWIFT and the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Putin has come a long way in making a critical point that his country is not isolated, and is out to carve out a new nexus in international relations. This he is able to do despite a controversial and contested military expedition in Ukraine, whose fate bothers the US and its allies to the core. With BRICS undergoing expansion in terms of economic and demographic weight, it faces a challenge to address low trade among member states so that the Global South can compete with G7 and the West who hold the sway on international finances. The bloc's potentials are breath-holding with half of the world's population and a 42% share of GDP.

It is incumbent upon BRICS member states to desist from playing to the gallery, and at the same time ward off the impression that Beijing and Moscow are calling the shots. The moment it rises as a forum of consensus in realising the tasks of mitigating climate change, eliminating poverty and freeing their respective regions from war-mongering, it will surely go on to bring the monopoly of the West on its knees.