The post-cold war era has seen commerce triumph over security, as the principal rationale of national groupings. In BRICS, India should also play to the cold economic realm and not focus on individual national aspirations.
Building BRICS: (from left) Brazilian President Michel Temer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jingping pose during the BRICS summit in Goa. AFP.Intergovernmental club memberships differ in composition, objective and criteria’s – they may exist as forums for propagating specific commercial interests (e.g. G-8, OPEC), common causes (OIC) or reflective of emerging aspirations (Group of Five or BRICS) etc.The timidity and generalities of “promoting international co-operation”, as in the case of the United Nations with 193 active members, is increasingly being criticised for lacking efficacy and representation with the exclusive preserve of the five permanent members (who have the critical “veto” power) to disallow any legitimate case. For instance, China has cocked a snook at the Indian efforts to declare Maulana Azhar Masood a terrorist by becoming the only UNSC member to veto the application. Inability to prevent conflicts or espouse meaningful causes, given the haphazard size and construct of the UN, has led to more focused and limited bodies of interested countries. If G-7 (or G-8, once Russia returns from its suspension for annexing Crimea) is the grouping of the most advanced economies, the G5 is the club of the five largest emerging economies, who have a unique set of aspirations and challenges from say, that of the G-8. The post-cold war era has seen commerce triumph over security, as the principal rationale of national groupings. The acronym, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is attributed to the mercantile vision of the then Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman, Jim O’Neill. He foresaw a certain growth trajectory and an inherent scale and potential of the member-states to play a major role in the global order. Representing over 3.7 billion population or half of mankind, 22 per cent of Gross World Product and an inherent growth energy that is fundamentally more powerful than the global growths – it has been posited as the growth engine of the world. However, perhaps more than any other multinational grouping, the dissimilarities of cultural-diplomatic-geographical dimension amongst the BRICS members, is the most pronounced of all groupings? It is perhaps the only club that is based on the promise of tomorrow, as opposed to the immediacy of today.The groupings are also reflective of the times that be, even though the genealogical economic honeymoon of the BRICS has ebbed considerably with Brazil and Russia facing deflation (or stagnation at best), and the fundamentals in China coming under extreme pressure and international hawk eye. BRICS remains an invaluably relevant forum for Russia, which faces international isolation from other multinational platforms, following Crimea and Syria. For India and China, this is a more interactive and focused forum which forces certain positions to be taken. For South Africa and Brazil. as the sole representatives from two continents, it offers “white spots” of commercial arrangements. While not a ranking-based or a region-based composition, it suffers from an “emotional” bind amongst members that could afford the BRICS to take powerful and united positions on global issues. Importantly, all four top heads of states who attended the first BRIC (later BRICS, with the addition of South Africa in 2010) summit in Yekaterinburg in Russia —- Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Manmohan Singh of India and Hu Jintao of China are not in leadership roles, anymore. The recently concluded BRICS summit in Goa, took place against the dark backdrop of Uri-related “surgical strikes” and the accompanying national narrative of cross-border terrorism. As hosts of the summit, an obvious advantage of steering the “Goa Declaration” had the nations eyeballs stuck on the non-trade related aspects of the summit declaration. It is here, a more sobering verdict emerged with the familiar tactic of “veto” by China, and the reiteration of the cold logic of BRICS, as yet another forum that does not necessarily lead to any immediate thawing, dilution or movements from already established positions. The newsroom-led soap opera led to a premature and exaggerated ‘thumbs-up’ accorded to the trite and rote language of the forum accepting that there cannot be any political or religious justification to terror. This is not surprising, as China faces Islamist issues in Uighur province, while Russia has the same in Chechenia. It was the missing fine-print of the term “cross-border terrorism,” which has singular and damaging implication for Pakistan or the fact that specifics of terror organisations found a mention of “Islamic State”, but not the more pertinent and topical, Jaish-e-Mohammed. Ostensibly, a familiar hand of China “vetoed” the consensus of the original draft.Further, China dampened the spirits by retorting to India’s attribution to Pakistan as the, “mothership of terrorism”, by stating that China was against, “the linking of terrorism to any specific country, ethnicity or religion” and that, “Everyone knows that India and Pakistan are victims of terrorism. Pakistan has made huge efforts and great sacrifices in fighting terrorism. I think the international community should respect this”. The lessons from the BRICS summit Goa is to nuance our expectation from every multinational meeting according to the realities of real politik that ultimately prevails over jingoistic fervour and unnecessary expectations. Some issues, however personal and burning to individual nations (like Pakistan-led terrorism for us), are only important to reiterate and state unambiguously, but not necessary to resolve conclusively. A lot of other relevant issues like commerce gets hijacked and become thevictim of the accompanying heat. China’s intransigence on India’s entry to the NSG, stand on Pakistan or Maulana Azar Masood are complex and rooted in diplomatic calculus of chessboard diplomacy. Like we insist that Pakistan should move beyond the so-called “core issue” of Kashmir to discuss trade, commerce and poverty eradication, likewise expectations from BRICS must set the commercial goalpost of unleashing meaningful trade opportunities. These should not be hampered by minefields of other sensitive issues facing individual member countries. Overt importance to semantical formulation of joint declarations is a frustrating task and the favourite pastime of prime-time news analysts. We must not peg all our efforts and expectations to the vexatious issues of the Sino-Pak relationship, which has logics, doctrines and strategic cords for the two countries, beyond the “non-conflicting” issue of terror, amongst themselves. China is not naïve to the role of Pakistan in terror mechanisations, neither is it naïve enough to accept the same. BRICS is still a very powerful and transformatory idea, albeit, an unnatural one that is beyond the confines of emotionality. We should play to its cold economic realm and not allow the individual national aspirations to let this grouping become another BRIC in the wall.The writer is a former Governor of Puducherry.
