By Dr. Kumari Mansi

Amity Center for BRICS Studies, Amity University Haryana | Formerly Indo-Pacific Research Fellow, Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada

On Saturday evening (September 12), the 2026 New Delhi Declaration was adopted, putting an end to months of speculation over whether India's BRICS presidency could forge consensus among the 11-member grouping. Given the failure to produce a joint statement at either the Deputy Foreign Ministers' or Foreign Ministers' meetings earlier this year amid continuing tensions and instability in West Asia, the pressure on India was immense, and the doubts were not unreasonable. Yet India once again demonstrated its diplomatic craft, producing a sense of déjà vu reminiscent of its G20 presidency in 2023, when consensus also appeared elusive until the very last hour.

The 45-page declaration, spanning 140 paragraphs, is organised under four headings: (a) Inclusive Global Governance and Strengthening Multilateralism; (b) International and Regional Peace and Security; (c) Sustainable and Inclusive Global Economic Growth; and (d) Strengthening Cultural and People-to-People Cooperation. It covers the breadth of contemporary global issues in granular detail. There are several takeaways from this declaration, but the theme that most distinguishes it from previous ones is the strong presence of the Bandung Spirit - the ethos of the 1955 Asian-African Conference, built on principles of equality, independence, non-intervention, mutual benefit, and South-South solidarity.

The statement opens with a near-direct restatement of Bandung's core tenets, committing to the principles of mutual respect, sovereign equality, solidarity, and consensus in strengthening cooperation within the expanded BRICS. Among the passages that most directly reflect the Bandung Spirit is the explicit invocation of Bandung itself, referenced in the pursuit of a fairer, more inclusive, and representative multilateral system. This anchors the entire document's worldview in the Bandung legacy.

This is further visible in the declaration's condemnation of colonialism and racialised historical injustice, which references UNGA Resolution 80/250 recognising the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialised chattel slavery as among the gravest crimes against humanity, and calls for full implementation of UNGA Resolution 79/115 of December 2024 toward eradicating colonialism in all its forms and manifestations - a strong anti-colonial, anti-racist thread central to Bandung's origins.

The declaration's opposition to unilateral coercive measures and sanctions as violations of international law that disproportionately harm ordinary people, together with its specific solidarity with Cuba against the blockade, echoes Bandung's rejection of great-power coercion over smaller and developing states. It also designates Latin America and the Caribbean a zone of peace built on mutual respect, peaceful settlement of disputes and non-intervention - language drawn almost verbatim from Bandung's ten principles.

Global South representation in global governance has long been the central leitmotif of BRICS. The New Delhi Declaration makes repeated calls for equitable representation of Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the UN Secretariat, for Security Council reform, and for reform of the IMF, World Bank, and other Bretton Woods institutions - all framed as correcting the historic underrepresentation of the very regions Bandung represented.

The Bandung ethos of non-intervention and self-determination appears prominently in the declaration's reference to African solutions to African problems regarding the deteriorating situation in Sudan. Support for the Palestinian cause is likewise repeatedly framed around the right to self-determination and statehood, opposition to occupation, and rejection of forced displacement - all consistent with Bandung's strong anti-colonial position on Palestine specifically.

The declaration also references the need to adapt the current architecture of international relations to reflect contemporary realities, explicitly rejecting a one-size-fits-all model of governance or development, and instead underscoring respect for the diversity of national systems and development pathways of each nation. This is the modern echo of Bandung's insistence on non-interference in domestic political and economic systems.

The declaration recasts Bandung's original anti-bloc, non-aligned instinct into today's language of multipolarity versus a unipolar order. It puts forward multipolarity as an opportunity to expand the space and scope for the constructive potential of Emerging Markets and Developing Countries (EMDCs).

Taken together, the New Delhi Declaration consciously positions BRICS as an inheritor of the Bandung non-aligned, anti-colonial, sovereignty-first tradition - updated for 2026's geopolitical realities.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Indrani Sarkar