From SCO to BRICS: A Moment to Catalyse Peace
By Patial RC
The world is entering one of the most dangerous phases of the post-Cold War era. Wars are becoming longer, military confrontation is increasingly accompanied by economic sanctions and trade wars, energy and food security are being weaponised, and strategic rivalry among major powers is deepening. At the same time, institutions created to prevent conflict and facilitate dialogue appear increasingly unable to bridge the widening divides. The result is a world in which confrontation is becoming normalised, while peace appears increasingly difficult to achieve.
It is against this disturbing backdrop that India finds itself at a unique diplomatic moment. The recently concluded SCO Summit in Bishkek has been followed almost immediately by preparations for the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on 12–13 September 2026. India, as the current BRICS Chair, will bring together countries representing enormous economic, demographic, energy and geopolitical weight. This convergence of the SCO and BRICS platforms presents New Delhi with an opportunity that extends well beyond the routine business of international summits. India can use this moment to give institutional expression to an idea whose time may have come: “A BRICS Peace Initiative, with India as its Catalyst.”
The objective need not be to negotiate a grand peace treaty or attempt to solve every international conflict at one stroke. The immediate purpose should be much more practical—to create a credible political space in which adversaries can communicate, humanitarian measures can be agreed upon, confidence can gradually be rebuilt and, eventually, negotiations can become possible.In other words, the world needs to move from managing “Endless Wars” towards creating the conditions for the “End of the Wars.”
This would represent an important evolution in India’s own diplomatic message. Four years ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “This is Not an Era of War.” Since then, however, the world has witnessed prolonged conflict in Ukraine, repeated cycles of violence in West Asia and an increasingly intense strategic confrontation among major powers. The message therefore needs to evolve. It is no longer enough to say that this is not an era for war. The greater challenge now is to ask: “How do we end the wars that have already begun?”
The significance of India’s approach lies precisely here. India has consistently maintained that lasting solutions cannot emerge from bombs, guns and bullets alone and that dialogue and diplomacy must ultimately provide the way forward. At Bishkek, Modi’s appeal to move from “Endless Wars” towards the “End of the Wars” gave this philosophy renewed urgency. It was a continuation of India’s long-standing position, but it also pointed towards something more ambitious: moving from a moral appeal for peace to a practical diplomatic effort to create it.
BRICS: The Appropriate Platform
BRICS provides India with perhaps the most appropriate platform for such an effort. It is not a military alliance and should never become one. Its strength lies in its diversity. Its members have different political systems, different strategic priorities and very different relationships with the United States, Europe, Russia and China. They do not agree on every international issue. Yet that very diversity gives BRICS an unusual diplomatic value.
It brings together countries that can communicate across geopolitical divides. At a time when the world is increasingly divided into competing camps, the ability simply to keep talking may itself become a strategic asset.
India should therefore consider placing before the New Delhi Summit a proposal for a “BRICS Peace Initiative.” It should be presented not as an alternative to the United Nations, not as an anti-Western project and certainly not as an attempt to create another geopolitical bloc, but as a complementary diplomatic mechanism. BRICS should explore how its collective diplomatic weight can contribute to creating conditions in which conflicts can move towards negotiation.
The Russia-Ukraine conflict would inevitably be one important focus, but the initiative should not be confined to Ukraine. The continuing instability in West Asia, threats to maritime commerce, disruption of energy supplies and the humanitarian consequences of prolonged conflict are equally relevant to the interests of BRICS countries and the wider Global South.The first task of a BRICS Peace Initiative should therefore be simple: “To Make Dialogue Possible.”
This is where India’s unique position becomes important. India’s greatest diplomatic strength is not its ability to compel other countries, but its ability to maintain relationships across opposing camps. New Delhi has a longstanding strategic partnership with Moscow while simultaneously developing close relations with the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia and other partners. India maintains engagement with Ukraine, Iran, the Arab world and the wider Global South.
This does not automatically make India a mediator, nor should India prematurely claim such a role. But it does make India potentially an effective Catalyst for Dialogue. India can speak to Moscow. It can maintain conversations with the West without abandoning its strategic relationship with Russia. It can engage the Global South while retaining an important voice in major international institutions. Few countries possess this combination of relationships.India’s strategic autonomy, therefore, should not be seen merely as a foreign-policy doctrine; it can also become a Diplomatic Resource for Peace.
The possibility of a BRICS Peace Initiative becomes even more significant when India-China relations are considered. India and China have serious strategic differences, including their unresolved boundary question and wider competition in Asia. These realities cannot be wished away. China possesses considerable influence with Russia, while India has its own longstanding relationship with Moscow and extensive engagement with the West and the Global South.
If the two countries could find even limited common ground on humanitarian issues, de-escalation and the restoration of dialogue, their combined diplomatic weight could be significant.Such cooperation would not represent an India-China alliance, nor would it erase their strategic differences. It would simply recognise a fundamental principle of diplomacy:In fact, the credibility of a peace initiative may increase when countries that disagree with each other nevertheless agree that prolonged war must not become the permanent condition of international politics.
From Humanitarian Measures to Negotiation
The Russia-Ukraine conflict demonstrates why this approach is necessary. A more realistic approach would be to begin with those issues on which humanitarian and practical agreement may be achievable. Ceasefires where feasible, prisoner exchanges, protection of civilians, nuclear safety, humanitarian corridors, restoration of agricultural links and secure commercial routes could become the first building blocks.
Once communication becomes normalised, the more difficult political questions can gradually be addressed.
The experience of previous peace initiatives also offers an important lesson: a durable peace process cannot indefinitely exclude one of the principal parties to a conflict. The challenge is therefore not simply producing another peace formula, declaration or conference. The challenge is to create the circumstances in which adversaries are willing to sit together.
Countries with strategic autonomy can play an important role in creating that space, especially when they are trusted by more than one side.
West Asia
The same logic applies to West Asia. The continuing instability in the region demonstrates how quickly a regional conflict can acquire global consequences. Energy supplies, shipping routes and freedom of navigation are matters of direct interest to India and to the wider developing world.
Any prolonged disruption in the Persian Gulf or around the Strait of Hormuz can affect energy prices, freight costs, inflation and economic growth far beyond the immediate region. India’s engagement with the countries of West Asia therefore has an importance that goes well beyond diplomacy.
This is also why peace belongs naturally within the BRICS Agenda. BRICS represents the aspirations of emerging economies seeking greater resilience, cooperation and a more balanced international order. But economic development cannot flourish indefinitely in an environment of permanent conflict.
Wars destroy infrastructure, disrupt energy supplies and trade, increase food insecurity and divert enormous resources from development towards military expenditure. Sanctions and trade wars fragment markets and supply chains. For the Global South, therefore, peace is not simply a moral aspiration.
Peace is a prerequisite for sustainable development.India should consequently resist any attempt to turn the BRICS Peace Initiative into another instrument of East-West confrontation. If BRICS presents itself as an anti-Western grouping, its peace initiative will lose much of its potential credibility. India should instead make the opposite argument;BRICS should become a Bridge, not another Divide. Its message should be “Talk to one another. Keep channels open. Find areas where humanitarian and economic cooperation can begin even when political agreement remains distant”.
The forthcoming New Delhi Summit therefore represents more than another meeting of heads of government. It is an opportunity for India to translate its repeated calls for dialogue into a concrete diplomatic proposition.
A carefully worded BRICS declaration supporting dialogue, humanitarian principles and conflict de-escalation could be followed by the creation of a small and flexible BRICS Peace Contact Group, involving countries capable of communicating with different sides of major conflicts and working in coordination with the United Nations and other established mechanisms.
For decades, the international community has invested enormous political energy in preparing for war, strengthening military alliances, imposing sanctions and developing new weapons. What is increasingly scarce is investment in creating the conditions for peace.The world does not suffer from a shortage of military power. It suffers from a shortage of trust.
India therefore has an opportunity to place a different proposition before the world through BRICS. It need not claim that it can end the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It need not pretend that every dispute in West Asia can be resolved at a summit. It cannot eliminate great-power rivalry. But it can help create diplomatic space in which negotiations become possible.
India to Seize the Moment
The recently concluded SCO Summit has demonstrated the importance of keeping communication alive among countries that do not always agree. The forthcoming BRICS Summit in New Delhi now provides India with an opportunity to take the next step—to translate its longstanding language of peace into a practical diplomatic initiative.
India need not claim that it can end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, resolve every crisis in West Asia or overcome great-power rivalry. Its greater contribution can be to create the diplomatic space in which adversaries can communicate, humanitarian concerns can be addressed, and negotiations can eventually become possible.
This is where India’s strategic autonomy, relationships across geopolitical divides and growing global influence can become a genuine diplomatic resource for peace.
The message from New Delhi could therefore be simple, yet consequential:“BRICS should become a bridge, not another divide; a platform for dialogue, not another arena of confrontation”.
The objective should be to move from merely appealing for peace to catalysing peace—from managing endless wars to creating the conditions for their end.“Wars may begin on the Battlefield, but Lasting Peace can only begin at the Negotiating Table”.
If India can place this idea at the heart of the BRICS agenda, it will offer the world something far more valuable than another declaration or another geopolitical bloc—a Bridge Towards Dialogue, Cooperation and Sustainable Peace.In an increasingly fragmented world, creating the conditions for peace is not an act of weakness; it is perhaps the ultimate expression of strategic wisdom.
Patial RC is a retired Infantry officer of the Indian Army and possesses unique experience of serving in active CI Ops across the country and in Sri Lanka. Patial RC is a regular writer on military and travel matters in military professional journals.
Eurasia Review
The views in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of InfoBRICS.