Pakistan’s ambassador to Russia, Mohammad Khalid Jamali, submitted an application to join BRICS in November last year.
Pakistan had the support of China. Russia also supported Pakistan’s application.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk told a news conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar last month: “We are happy that Pakistan has applied for BRICS membership. BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Council Organization are friendly organizations. We will support Pakistan’s efforts to join.
Overchuk said: “In recent years, BRICS has grown. Countries all over the world are showing interest in joining this initiative. We have very good relations with Pakistan.
BRICS was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India and China. South Africa joined in 2011.
Pakistan failed
Pakistan probably had an idea in advance that India would not accept its membership. This is clear from Prime Minister Modi’s statement at the concluding session of the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia on Wednesday. Prime Minister Modi said that India welcomes new members to BRICS, but all decisions related to it have to be taken unanimously.
India is a founding member of BRICS and its consent is necessary for the inclusion of any new member. Prime Minister Modi made India’s position on BRICS expansion clear. Prime Minister Modi said, “The process and principles that we adopted in Johannesburg should be followed.”
Over 30 countries have shown interest in joining BRICS. These include Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Malaysia, Azerbaijan and Colombia. India’s relations with Pakistan have historically been bad. There is not even diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The second important thing is that India will avoid including countries loyal to China in BRICS. The relations between Pakistan and China are not hidden from anyone. India does not want BRICS to become a forum dominated by China.
Pakistani English daily Dawn writes that as tensions on the China-India border are easing, the path to BRICS may become easier for Pakistan. Pakistan hopes that if China-India relations are good, it will be possible to persuade India to reach an agreement on the Pakistan issue.
Who stopped Pakistan?
“We hope that Pakistan’s request will be considered and it is necessary for BRICS to be inclusive,” Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told a press conference in Islamabad.
The Kazan summit also announced BRICS partner countries, and Pakistan’s name does not appear there either. Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam were included in the BRICS partner countries.
On not being a BRICS member, Rana Ahsan Afzal Khan from Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s team said, “Pakistan is optimistic about joining BRICS. I believe Pakistan will be a part of BRICS in the near future. Of course BRICS is a platform for the world’s largest economies. Pakistan intends to increase its oil imports from Russia.
When Russia supported Pakistan’s membership in September last year, Derek Grossman, Indo-Pacific analyst at the Rand Corporation, wrote, “When Russia included India in the SCO, China included Pakistan.” Now Russia is supporting Pakistan in BRICS at India’s expense, and China will clearly benefit from Pakistan’s entry into BRICS.
When there was talk of including the UAE, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Saudi Arabia in BRICS, it was still said that China was adding new members on its own.
Who doesn’t like Modi’s speech?
In August 2023, strategic affairs expert Brahma Chellaney wrote, “China seems to have an advantage in terms of accepting new members, which is aggressively expanding BRICS with the support of Russia.” Just as China allowed India to join the SCO only with Pakistan, now the BRICS rival pair will have two new geopolitical rivals in addition to India and China: Iran and Saudi Arabia.”
Chellani believed that India has no problem with the UAE, but Iran and Saudi Arabia will side with China over India in times of trial.
Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, believes that what Prime Minister Modi said in the closing speech of the BRICS summit in Kazan will not satisfy Russia and China.
Sharing Prime Minister Modi’s closing speech, Tanvi Madan wrote, “It is natural that the Modi-Xi meeting.
PM Modi said that India supports dialogue and diplomacy, not war. Of course, Russia attacked Ukraine and in 2020, Chinese soldiers also had violent clashes with Indian soldiers in Galwan.
PM Modi said that in the fight against terrorism and terrorism financing, we have to speak with one voice. There should be no double standards on these issues. It is obvious that when India tried several times to declare Sajid Mir Lashkar, who was involved in the Mumbai attacks, as a terrorist at the UN, China stopped the decision.
PM Modi said that BRICS should send a clear message that BRICS is not a divisive organisation but an organisation working in the interest of humanity. Narendra Modi also said that BRICS is not about taking the place of global institutions but about advocating for their reforms.
Of course, Russia and China have described global institutions like the United Nations and the World Bank as pro-Western organisations. In such a situation, what Modi said from the BRICS platform would not be pleasant for Xi Jinping and Putin.
PM Modi said that all decisions must be taken unanimously and the founding members of BRICS should be respected. Of course, China and Russia wanted to include Pakistan in BRICS, but India did not want to.
