KAZAN: Pakistan’s bid to enter BRICS appears to have suffered a serious setback as it has not been listed as a partner country in the expansion process. This has happened as India is opposed to Pakistan’s entry into BRICS, which is emerging as a major collective of the Global South. Incidentally, India is a founder member of this group which initially comprised of Brazil (B), Russia (R), India (I), China (C) and South Africa. From the name of South Africa, only the initial letter S has been taken to form the acronym BRICS.
As new members are admitted to BRICS only by consensus, it was clear that India’s opposition to Pakistan’s membership could thwart its desire of joining the group, despite some other founding members favouring it. As was expected, India appeared to have used its virtual veto (breaking the consensus) on admitting Pakistan into this grouping. Most Pakistani politicians had hoped that with the help of Russia and China, Pakistan would be able to gain entry into BRICS.
Pakistan’s bid to join the BRICS marked its intent to position itself with the world’s influential economies. It had also underscored Pakistan’s aspiration to be a player in the Global South. It was widely believed in Pakistan that it had much to gain both economically and diplomatically by joining BRICS. However, this was not something that India would condone as the bilateral relations between them are at their nadir for at least the last five years.
Pakistan had for too long made the right type of noises and said that India could not be allowed to isolate it internationally. Some top Pakistani diplomats had visited capitals of several nations to enlist support for its candidature and indirectly remove the hurdles likely to be created by India.
The alliance had initially started with five nations only (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) but expanded rapidly to embrace Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. After Pakistan’s application for the membership in August last year, Turkiye, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have also formally applied to become members, and a few others have expressed interest in joining.
“We believe that by joining BRICS, Pakistan can play an important role in furthering international cooperation and revitalising inclusive multilateralism. We also hope that BRICS will move forward on Pakistan’s request in line with its commitment to inclusive multilateralism,“ Pakistan Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson in Islamabad Mumtaz Zahra Baloch had said at one time.
Last month, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk had visited Islamabad to hold formal talks with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar. He had then said that Moscow would favour Pakistan’s inclusion in BRICS. This had led to a lot of speculation that India may now listen to its ally Russia and stop objecting to Pakistan’s membership of BRICS.
The BRICS bloc had last year admitted four new members, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and came to be known as BRICS Plus. Islamabad’s application for membership had coincided with BRICS growing recognition as a prominent multilateral group representing the Global South. India does not want engagements with Pakistan and Prime Narendra Modi’s presence I Kazan for the BRICS summit has done the trick.
Several countries want to join BRICS and the total has been put at 29 by the officials who work with this bloc. Pakistan was one among these nations and as a group it represents almost half the world’s population today. By way of GDP, these BRICS block nations represent about 30 per cent of the global GDP, according to many reports.
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