India's Strategic Challenge at the Upcoming BRICS Summit in New Delhi

When leaders of the Brics group of emerging economies meet in New Delhi on September 12-13, India will confront an awkward paradox: the grouping has never been bigger or harder to make coherent.

It also makes consensus much harder. For India, the Delhi summit is therefore less a test of whether Brics can become an alternative to the Western-led order than whether it can turn its diversity into something useful. The answer will depend heavily on how New Delhi manages its most obvious contradiction: China.

Such linkages could give companies alternatives when geopolitical shocks disrupt established routes. That makes Brics economically relevant even without a common currency or a break with the US dollar. The bigger opportunity for India is to turn the grouping into a network that makes trade, investment and payments easier among its members.