 Welcome to another International Relations capsule for the Shankar Academy. Today we thought we'll discuss the BRICS summit which is going to take place in Delhi on September the 9th. We are somewhat fatigued by the news from Afghanistan and I thought we might change the subject. Even though the only international development these days they all rotate around developments in Afghanistan. BRICS as you all know is an organization of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. And the next summit which is the 13th summit of this organization will be held virtually in Delhi with our Prime Minister in the chair. If you look at the composition of this group you'll be surprised as to what is common among them. When you have smaller organizations other than the United Nations, they always have some kind of a glue which bring them together. Mostly they are regional countries of a particular region who have common interests, common levels of development and common aspirations. That is how these groups began to be formed. So we know the most successful regional groups like European Union, ASEAN and several others, particularly every region has a regional grouping. We ourselves have our own sock which of course is not very active these days. But so every region has a spare to develop their own organizations. And this is something which is prescribed in the United Nations Charter because everything cannot be dealt with by the UN itself. So some of the problems can be resolved locally, that is one reason regionally. And the other is there can be economic cooperation among these countries which should be mutually helpful. Then of course there have been the blocs, military blocs who are bound by ideology whether you are thinking of NATO or you think of Warsaw Pact. So there it is ideology and security that bring them together. But these five countries if you analyze it and see what is common among them you will wonder. Because Russia, China on the one hand, highly developed countries and then you have India, Brazil and South Africa. In fact there was already an organization the comprising of Brazil, India and South Africa. And this was because these are the bigger developing countries. But the idea of these five countries being clubbed together came from the Goldman Sachs consulting company in the United States. And it's economists called John O'Neill. He's the one who first wrote about the possibility, not only not of bricks but brick because he had not included South African. And why Goldman Sachs? Because they keep looking at possibilities of investments abroad. And the likelihood of growth of countries development and their needs and to advise their clients about investments in various parts of the world. So Mr O'Neill suggested that Brazil, Russia, India and China had the biggest potential of growth. Because we are talking about 2001, 2002 that period. And without thinking that this would eventually become a regional organization he suggested this and did its various studies. Which are followed by investors and some of these countries began exploring investment in these countries. And this gave the main idea to these countries themselves that this could be a grouping. So we might be able to marshal resources together, work together. Even though ideologically they had no blue, they were not the same at all. Democratic countries, China, Russia, for South Africa, Brazil. So all these countries did not have a particular profile shall we say, they're all very different. But this idea that they're getting together can promote cooperation among these countries. It sparked up this idea of an organization called BRIC, BRIC it was. And South Africa joined later because South Africa was already cooperating with India and Brazil. And therefore in the new group also South Africa was invited to join. And that is how BRIC became BRICs and became a rather important organization. But everybody wondered as to why this was becoming an organization. And just as we were reluctant about joining quadrilateral initially. For fear that quadrilateral will be seen as something against China. Many people thought that BRICs might become a counter to the United States. Because either major countries are in one group and United States is not there. So there was a suspicion that this could become an anti-US grouping. Because of the various aspects of these countries, Russia of course has been in cold war with the United States. China has lots of problems with the United States and China wants to change the international system particularly the financial system. To change it from Bretton Woods institutions to something else. So they had that aspiration also in mind. So when this grouping was formed India was a bit reluctant. Brazil was a bit reluctant also etc. But then finally the compulsion of the ideas that had emerged from Goldman Sachs encouraged them to try out a group like this. And the first group meeting of this group was held in July 2006 at the foreign minister's level. Even at that time the idea was somewhat tentative. They were looking at ideas like cooperation among themselves and not to appear to be reforming the world or challenging the existing system. But gradually and slowly China became a predominant member of this group. And China's idea was exactly to challenge the United States particularly on financial institutions. Because they had felt for some time that the World Bank IMF systems were not very friendly to developing countries. And they had this idea though they did not reveal at that time was to perhaps create a kind of counter to the World Bank. And giving loans to the developing countries themselves and therefore act as some kind of a counter to World Bank and IMF. Of course it is not very easy to do because that is globally established institutions connected to the United Nations. But everybody knows that the World Bank and IMF are run by the people who contribute and not democratic organizations. Decisions are taken on the basis of the weighted votes that the countries have and the biggest contributor takes the biggest decisions. So there is a certain amount of disparity among the members and the benefits that they get. So generally there is a certain dissatisfaction about the way World Bank and IMF work but then it is run by the contributors. So there is nothing that you could all be members but the vote is in favour of those who pay more. It's not like the United Nations. In the United Nations everybody has one vote whether you are paying a large contribution or a smaller contribution because the contributions are fixed on the basis of capacity to pay. But here in the World Bank and IMF no this is all based on contributions and on that basis the biggest contributors always decide what should happen. And when an organization like that comes they first try to figure out an agenda. And when there are parallel organizations of late time like for example United Nations has a certain agenda. Parallel you have a commonwealth countries not the old United Nations but those countries who were once colonies of the UK. So they try to make an agenda which is different from the United Nations. But in the end you will find that there will be so much of duplication whether it is environmental issues, whether it is decolonization issues, racial issues so all these become parallel duplicating the work of the other countries. But then commonwealth for example started saying that we have many small countries, small is beautiful so all these small countries so they started dealing with problems of small countries, small island states. Then they started thinking about the race issues in countries and so they also kept an agenda which is slightly different from the United Nations but still more or less it is the same. There is always security concerns, development concerns, collaboration concerns. So as BRIC started moving very slowly I think the things too because of the suspicion as to whether all these five can work together what kind of platform they will have at the time. And three years later in on 16th of June 2009 the summit was held with the prime ministers of presidents present there and it started taking off an agenda. And to be expected the three things that they picked up were political and security because it is discussed by everybody, every organization. Then economic and financial responsibilities and capabilities of these countries. Then cultural and people-to-people contact so nothing surprising in these three pillars as it were that they adopted. And at every summit discussions are held, papers are prepared, studies are made and slowly and steadily BRICs has taken some shape. But the problem with these organizations is that when the global situation changes, their relevance also changes. And the capabilities that they had at one point may reduce at a later stage and certain cases it will increase. So the examples about BRICs if you look at it you will find that India of course has remained steady one of the past developing nations. Brazil was doing extremely well but if you look at Brazil now, particularly because they have a president who calls himself the second Donald Trump. There are very many quality decisions, problems, environmental degradation, damage and of course the pandemic. So all put together Brazil has taken a rather low position in the on the world stage. Russia was once a superpower so they have ambitions to dominate any any booking so they took some initiatives. But China outshone all of them. South Africa was in terms of population and importance, the only country in Africa had its own importance but there have been many internal problems there and corruption cases and so many. So South Africa is also not doing extremely well. So the judgment that was made long ago by Goldman Sachs that all these would be the fast growing large developing countries which will assume importance in the world very soon that disappeared after some time. Why then we had already made an organization, the organization goes on but the original vision of Goldman Sachs that investment will flow to these five countries that changed and in fact Goldman Sachs dropped the idea of promoting BRICs as an investment destination. Although there are many countries who had gone to these countries and we had also picked up direct foreign investment in these countries. But the kind of growth that was envisaged at the time of the first conference changed and if you look at it today when we have the summit meeting in Delhi. All these five countries have different personnel, all different from what they were at the time and their internal relationships have also changed. We'll come to the summit later. But so what really happened was that China completely dominated BRICs because they had the money to invest. A BRICs bank was established. So much of the money for the BRICs bank came from China. Also BRICs established some loan facilities to member countries where again China was the one which did not need it, other countries needed it. So the BRICs bank was actually established in China even though the CEO was an Indian. So the usual frustrations of multilateral arrangements where you had to divide benefits and share the responsibilities etc. So today BRICs is just a shadow of what it was when it was established. But these institutions have their own dynamics, their own staff, people have to continue working on them and therefore the organization goes on. Often there is talk about reform, talk of changing the agenda, making it more effective, not to challenge the Bretton Woods system in a formal manner. All these trends are there. And the next summit will of course reflect all these thoughts within the organization. But in terms of importance of the membership of the organization, we should not forget that among these five countries there are 42% of the world population. So it's a large segment, almost half the population of the world in BRICs. Then 30% of the land area, again a big chunk and 24% of global GDP. GDP is lower because all these countries are not as prosperous as the developed countries. So within this setup several efforts were made. The first effort was to make this as a bridge between the North and the South, you know the expression. The North is the more developed regions of the world and the South is the developing country. So somehow geographically it has come about like that. All the rich countries are the North of the equator and the poor countries are the South of the equator with some exceptions. And North-South cooperation and dialogue were promoted by the United Nations and other agencies. So one really agenda was because we said the North and the South included there should be a bridge between the two. And even though the capabilities of the countries were different, Russia and China on one side and Brazil, India and South Africa on the other. There could be cooperation in whatever way they can. Then as I mentioned earlier, the other activity that the Chinese took over was a reform of the multilateral financial institutions to try and rectify the disadvantages in World Bank and IMF. So they wanted these countries, particularly China, wanted the control, central role on the emerging markets because we are the emerging markets, not the industrialized nations. So we felt the organization felt that it should have a bigger role because it is still to come. And so a new development bank was established and contingency reserve arrangement for the countries to use financing in certain situations. And the latest that they have taken over as an activity is vaccine development because the United Nations did not do that. And if they had done that, there would have been better advantage. There was no international coordination. So with 42% of the population reflected in the BRICS, perhaps BRICS could make a big contribution. And I'll probably be discussed in Delhi. And the Chinese Foreign Minister said, I think today or yesterday, that one of the other topics they will discuss in Delhi is Afghanistan. Because if these leaders meet, the promotes thing in their mind will be Afghanistan. And I suspect that much of the time in Delhi will be taken over by Afghanistan because the situation has not stabilized. And all these countries are very anxious, but we are all in different sides of the conflict in the sense that Russia and China are closer. Earlier, Russia was the most concerned about Afghanistan, but now China is planning to get there with Pakistan and Taliban. So Afghanistan may be discussed, but interests will be different. The only common interest will be of course to have a composite government in Afghanistan and moderate policy on the side and also investment and development. These are common, but who will have the prime involvement in Afghanistan will be something which will be in dispute. And what are the challenges now before this organization? First of all, China's aggression in Ladakh has changed the nature of our relationship with China. So just as we moved out or distanced ourselves from Sark, because of trouble with Pakistan and Pakistan raising Kashmir regime in every meeting, we got a bit fed up by Sark discussions on the subject. Anywhere and everywhere there is a meeting, Pakistan will raise the Kashmir regime. Even though there was understanding at the very beginning that bilateral issues will not be discussed. But who can prevent the head of government if he decides to make a speech on Kashmir? And so that is the reason why I think we distanced ourselves from Sark. And we seem to promote now the other organization called BIMSTEC, in which Pakistan is not there, but otherwise many countries of the region are there. So because of this low point in relations between China and India, this idea of cooperation inside BRICS also is in danger. Then the relations between China and Russia, as I mentioned, it has changed. Now they seem to be working together. So they might band together, they might stay together in this BRICS also and create some stumbling blocks for India and the others. Then as I mentioned, South Africa's internal problems, Brazil's internal problems are very serious, particularly on the pandemic. Brazil is probably one of the worst affected countries because President Bolsonaro adopted an unconventional and scientific approach like President Trump did and brought chaos for this country. And this was a very good and fast developing country. People used to say there are three worlds in Brazil, first world, second world and third world, all in one country. But now the situation has changed that are more serious problems. And then of course, China's image has been tarnished because of their recent activities, not only in Ladakh but also in South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and so forth. So the heterogeneity of the organization, the diversity of BRICS, was there already even after it, but now it has become more evident. And there are very few issues on which they are able to work together. Climate change can be one issue on which there could be agreement based on the Paris Agreement, but we know from recent developments that the Paris Agreement is not very effective. And different countries have different ideas of declaring zero carbon by a particular year, that is now the fashionable thing to do. But whether these five countries will stick together, India has kept out of it, China has declared 2050, United States has declared 2030, etc., etc., for carbon free countries to become carbon free. But on this, an agreement is not easy among the five countries, but this will be a topic for discussion. Then balancing trade with China is an issue for all of us, India mostly, but others also, they all sell more between these countries than buy. Then new global model of governance are coming up in different parts of the world. And here again, there is no balance among the views of these five countries. And the South has benefited in certain ways because of the new governance style, because democracy is becoming rare and also there is support for democracies emerging from different quarters. So I believe, and we will know in the next few days that one of the priorities of BRICS will be India's own priority or developing multilateralism. Because during Trump's days, multilateralism and globalization are all given up and people were all on their own. And that is why the world suffered most under the pandemic because there could not be joint activities. So multilateralism is something that we would like to be strengthened. And that will of course include the United Nations and other regional organizations, of course including World Bank, IMF and WTO. So these are priorities which may come up for discussion. As far as multilateralism is concerned, reform of the United Nations is important. And as you can see, two are already permanent members of the Security Council and the other three are all aspirants, Brazil, India and South Africa. Because Brazil and India are already declared candidates for permanent members. South Africa is unable to do that because there is no agreement in the African group. But there are other candidates from Africa like Egypt and Nigeria and therefore Africa is unable to decide on one particular country. So Europe is more or less understood, it will be Germany, India is more or less understood, Asia should be India. And Brazil should be from Latin America, but on South Africa there is no clear. This doesn't mean any of them have been accepted by anybody, in fact there is no absolute support for any of them. Because only a package deal can be worked up, individual countries cannot be admitted as permanent members. This was tried by the United States at one time, just make Germany and Japan permanent members and leave out all the rest. So that will not be accepted. So there is no consensus even in this group about what the reform process should be. Terrorism, there is of course agreement among all of them. Pakistan is not there so there is no terrorist sponsoring country in the group. China has terrorist issues, Russia has terrorist issues, we have major issues, South Africa has and Brazil has. So it is quite possible for us to work out some common strategy to fight against terrorism. Another area where we could work together is the promoting of technological and digital solutions because some of them have advanced technology and that will be very useful. So we can expect that all these issues will be discussed and there will be an agreed statement where all these things will be touched because there will only be the common denominators, the common lowest denominator only will be reflected in the statements. But even though it is a virtual summit and not the leaders will not be physically present, the very fact that these five countries will be discussing these issues starting from Afghanistan to technology to reform etc. Whether it is BRICS or not, these countries are independent in themselves and they have ideas and it will be very useful to have a kind of agreement. But the future of BRICS will depend on what emerges out of all this and it will be too early to say whether the common agenda and the common progress can be registered in Delhi. Certainly our Prime Minister as the chair will try to bring about conciliation and try to promote the interests of developing countries. But of course China's peculiar situation inside this group will have its own tensions and although they are not physically there, seeing President of China and Prime Minister of India in a group like this will look a bit odd in the present circumstances. So I think the very many ideas that have been floated and started by BRICS not progressing as much as we had expected for the reasons that we listed. But once an organization is created, people will try to readjust and then does understand each other and try to come to common positions. So don't be surprised if there is a common position on some of these issues or at least some common factors can be identified and therefore the BRICS summit may be a success. Because the original idea of these countries are the countries which will maintain sustained economic growth, particularly double digit growth was one of the factors, but then that is not attainable. But still some kind of sustainable growth will definitely be tried and some strategy for this and also cooperation among these countries is probably about finance. So many of these groups, some of the groups have become defunct as you know that it comes up formally once in a while, but they don't have that kind of energy. Sark is a good example of that. So in my view, unless it is thoroughly reformed and unless these countries evolve towards the direction in which these countries were at the time of the invention of BRICS, BRICS is not going to play a big role as an organization. But certainly these five countries have an important role to play and they're getting together in Delhi will certainly lead to some activities at the international level by all these countries. That's all that we can expect. No dramatic results can be expected because of the very diversity and also because it's own the country, the performance of these countries has also dwindled in the past. So they have to recover that greater balance in the organization. China must also adjust itself to the other countries and all these factors remain unknown. But certainly no summit ever fails. There will always be a compromise, some cover up will always be there. And therefore we can expect some declaration which will be hailed as a new vision for BRICS. And there are these very important leaders there and there will be that compulsion to provide a vision and that we can expect. Thank you very much. Well, if it has not become like that already, it is only because of India. Because what we have to remember is the United States, Australia and Japan are already a military alliance. So they have no problem saying that there's an alliance we want to contain China etc. But without India, Indonesia without India will be like Hamlet without the terms of Denmark. So India has to be there, then only it can be a powerful force even if the intention is to contain China or to increase cooperation with China, whatever. So India is an indispensable part. But we have this allergy towards joining a military alliance of any kind. And we repeatedly said that there's not a military alliance. But in our thinking also there has been a change after the pandemic as well as the Chinese incursion. Because if you look around the world you will find that and also the China, China's aggressiveness and Russia getting close to China etc. So if you look around the world you will find that perhaps a potential partner for India in strategic terms is United States. It's very clear. And it came out very awkwardly at the time of Trump. When Al-Ram was very often Mr Pompeo shouted from the rooftops about it. And that has now kind of slowed down because Biden administration has different priorities. And their attitude towards China is also more nuanced. It's not all opposition. And we ourselves do not want to get dragged out into an embrace with the United States more than necessary. And therefore this has cooled off a little bit. But when it comes to the crunch then I think this will develop into a military alliance. And that can be avoided only if China behaves differently or Russia behaves differently. And an atmosphere of cooperation emerges and then Quad becomes a cooperative body rather than military or ideological. And that we can expect. Thank you very much.