Recent political changes in India and Brazil serve as the main challenges facing the BRICS alliance to fulfill its anti-imperialist agenda, a political analyst says.
“It appears that there is a change of mood in New Delhi. Prime Minister Modi is finally showing interest in participating in this organization but the question is to what extent this is going to be political because Prime Minister Modi is talking about hunting business opportunities and he is a very strong pro-Western leader,” said Andre Vltchek, a journalist and filmmaker from Beirut.
So the question is that is he going to join the anti-imperialist sprite of the BRICS or is he going to be just interested in what he calls anti-terrorist measures of the bloc, Vltchek said.
The second problem is Brazil, he said, adding that the country has experienced a parliamentary coup in which a left-wing president was deposed by the pro-Western, right-wing elite.
“So again it is not the same Brazil that we know from several months ago,” he said.
Brazil used to be standing by China and Russia against the Western imperialism but now China, Russia, and South Africa are on one side and Brazil and India are on the other, Vltchek stated.
"We have the Issue of terrorism also. At this moment India is constantly talking about the terrorist threat and the need to deal with it but in recent weeks India has performed extremely brutal actions in Kashmir, where more than 100 civilians were brutally killed. So is this terrorism or is this occupation? There is a lot of questions that have to be answered in the upcoming hours."
BRICS, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, was formed in 2011. The countries, with a joint estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of 16 trillion dollars, set up their own bank in parallel with the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.
The 8th BRICS Summit kicked off on Saturday in the beach town of Benaulim in the Indian state of Goa.