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Which leaves the question that will ultimately define this chairship: what does success even look like for India? Not the length of the New Delhi Declaration — that much is certain. It comes down to whether India can make an enlarged BRICS more functional without making it more anti-Western. That balance matters because India needs BRICS as a Global South platform, but it also depends heavily on the US, Europe, Japan and other Indo-Pacific partners for technology, capital and strategic balance. Success, on those terms, would mean visible progress on NDB reform and financing, local-currency mechanisms pursued without chasing an unrealistic common currency, more resilient supply chains, technology cooperation, and a clearer way of managing a membership that keeps growing more diverse. 2026 can move BRICS closer to functioning as an effective forum for global governance — just probably not toward “cohesion” in the sense the West understands it. India’s real contribution may be something more modest and more durable: proving BRICS can work as a pragmatic multipolar institution — internally diverse, non-aligned, even competitive — while still delivering collectively wherever interests genuinely overlap. That, in the end, may be the only version of BRICS that lasts.