India has just hosted another BRICS summit. But perhaps the more important question is not which grouping India belongs to. The question is what India gains from every relationship it enters. A mature India should be pragmatic, not dogmatic: cooperate with everyone where useful, depend on no one where avoidable, and turn imported technology into domestic capability.
The Question Behind the BRICS Summit
India has just completed its 2026 BRICS presidency with the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12–13. The expanded grouping now brings together eleven countries and has become a significant platform for discussions on trade, finance, supply chains, technology, energy and the broader architecture of the global economy. The New Delhi Declaration runs to 140 points and reflects the enormous breadth of issues now sitting under the BRICS umbrella.
There is nothing inherently wrong with India being part of BRICS.
In fact, there are many reasons for India to participate.
BRICS gives India a platform in the Global South. It provides diplomatic leverage. It creates opportunities for trade, energy cooperation, investment and financial experimentation. It gives India another forum through which it can influence discussions about global governance.
But membership in a grouping should never become an ideology.
That is the larger lesson India should take from the summit.
India should be pragmatic about groupings rather than dogmatic about them.
A grouping is a tool.
It is not an identity.
It is not a marriage.
And it certainly should not determine with whom India is allowed to cooperate technologically.
India's Foreign Policy Should Have One Simple Question
Whenever India enters a major economic or technological relationship, there should be a question asked at the beginning, in the middle and at the end:
What capability will India have after this relationship that it did not have before?
This question changes everything.
Suppose India imports a finished product worth $100.
The transaction provides the Indian consumer with the product.
That is useful.
But suppose India instead imports a $100 piece of manufacturing equipment that allows an Indian factory to produce that product domestically.
Now India has acquired something more valuable than the product.
It has acquired productive capacity.
Now imagine that Indian engineers learn to maintain the machine.
Then Indian companies begin manufacturing some of its components.
Then Indian engineers modify it.
Then Indian companies design the next generation.
Eventually, India exports the machine.
The original $100 import has become the beginning of an industrial ecosystem.
This is the distinction between consumption and learning.
Import the Tool That Makes the Product
India does not need to stop importing.
It needs to become much more selective about what it imports.
There is a profound difference between importing a finished smartphone and importing the equipment, process technology and expertise required to manufacture smartphones.
There is a difference between buying an industrial robot and developing the ability to manufacture industrial robots.
There is a difference between buying an AI accelerator and learning how to design, package, program and manufacture accelerators.
There is a difference between subscribing forever to foreign software and participating in open-source ecosystems that allow Indian developers to understand, modify and eventually replace critical layers.
There is a difference between importing a semiconductor and importing semiconductor manufacturing equipment, process knowledge, PDKs, design expertise and packaging technology.
The strategic objective should therefore be:
Import the means of production before you import the means of consumption.
And when finished products must be imported, India should ask whether the same transaction can eventually lead to domestic manufacturing, design or technology development.
Trade Deficits Are Not the Real Problem
This distinction also changes how India should think about trade deficits.
A trade deficit is not automatically evidence of economic weakness.
If India imports sophisticated machinery that dramatically increases domestic productivity, the deficit may be part of a healthy industrialisation process.
The problem comes when imports remain permanently concentrated in finished goods, components and technologies that India has no pathway to manufacture or improve.
India's trade relationship with China illustrates why this distinction matters.
Official Indian data shows that India's merchandise trade deficit with China reached $63.97 billion during April–October 2025. Importantly, the government also noted that a substantial portion of these Chinese imports consisted of raw materials, intermediate goods and capital goods used in Indian production, including auto components, electronic parts and assemblies, mobile-phone parts and machinery.
That is a much more complicated picture than simply saying “Chinese imports are bad.”
Some imports feed Indian industry.
The strategic question is therefore not whether India should import these things tomorrow.
The question is whether India should still need to import them ten or twenty years from now.
That is the difference between dependence and industrial learning.
The Five-Stage Journey of an Import
India could think about strategic imports as moving through a ladder:
Stage 1 — Import
India buys the finished product.
Stage 2 — Assemble
India begins assembling the product domestically.
Stage 3 — Manufacture
Indian companies begin producing significant components.
Stage 4 — Engineer
Indian engineers modify, optimise and improve the technology.
Stage 5 — Design
India develops its own technology and eventually exports it.
This should become one of the fundamental metrics of Indian industrial policy.
Not simply:
“How many factories did we attract?”
But:
“How much technological capability did those factories leave behind?”
Be Friends With Everyone. Depend on Nobody.
This is where India's foreign policy needs to become genuinely pragmatic.
India does not need to decide that one country is permanently a friend and another is permanently an enemy.
International relations do not work that way.
A country can simultaneously cooperate with one nation on energy, another on semiconductors, another on defence, another on robotics and another on critical minerals.
There is no contradiction.
India should be willing to work with China where Chinese technology or manufacturing capability is useful.
It should work with Russia where Russian capabilities remain strategically valuable.
It should work with Europe where European industrial and technological capabilities complement India's requirements.
It should work with Japan on manufacturing and precision engineering.
It should work with South Korea on electronics and advanced manufacturing.
It should work with Taiwan on semiconductors.
It should work with the United States on advanced computing, AI, aerospace and other frontier technologies.
And it should simultaneously build Indian alternatives wherever dependence creates strategic vulnerability.
This is not inconsistency.
This is strategic diversification.
The Frenemy Principle
India should be comfortable with a concept that is uncomfortable for ideological foreign policy:
The frenemy.
A country can be a strategic competitor and still be a useful technology partner.
A country can be politically difficult and still provide valuable machinery.
A country can be an important trading partner without becoming India's technological foundation.
The objective is not to create permanent friendships.
The objective is to create permanent Indian capability.
That means India should be able to say:
“We will buy your machine today, learn how it works, build our own ecosystem around it, improve it tomorrow and perhaps compete with you the day after.”
There is nothing hostile about this.
It is how industrial civilisation works.
BRICS Should Be a Tool, Not a Destination
BRICS therefore has value.
But India should resist turning BRICS into an economic philosophy.
The expanded grouping is large and diverse. Its members have different political systems, different economic structures, different strategic interests and, in some cases, competing geopolitical objectives.
India should therefore ask of BRICS initiatives:
- Does this increase Indian exports?
- Does this reduce India's strategic vulnerability?
- Does this create Indian manufacturing capability?
- Does this bring useful technology into India?
- Does this encourage joint research?
- Does this create Indian intellectual property?
- Does this create Indian companies capable of competing globally?
If the answer is yes, India should participate enthusiastically.
If the answer is no, India should participate diplomatically but avoid mistaking diplomatic participation for economic strategy.
India does not have to abandon a forum simply because it does not deliver everything India wants.
Nor should India remain emotionally attached to a forum simply because India helped build it.
Use the platform. Extract the value. Move on when necessary.
Europe May Be More Important Than the Acronym Suggests
This is where India's relationship with Europe becomes particularly interesting.
India does not need Europe because Europe is “Western.”
India needs Europe because Europe possesses many of the industrial capabilities India needs to build its next technological layer.
Europe has extraordinary strengths in precision machinery, industrial automation, semiconductor equipment, automotive technology, advanced materials, robotics, medical technology, aerospace and industrial software.
India has enormous strengths in software, engineering talent, manufacturing scale, digital infrastructure, entrepreneurship and a gigantic domestic market.
These strengths are complementary.
And this is no longer merely an abstract possibility.
In 2026, India and the European Union concluded negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement, while their Trade and Technology Council has expanded cooperation into semiconductors, high-performance computing, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and 6G.
The EU and India have also agreed to deepen semiconductor cooperation, including chip design, heterogeneous integration, advanced-process PDK development, talent exchanges and resilient semiconductor production.
This is precisely the type of relationship India should cultivate.
Not simply:
“European company sells something to India.”
But:
“European technology and Indian engineering create something neither side could have created as efficiently alone.”
From European Machines to Indian Factories
Imagine a European company supplies advanced factory automation equipment to an Indian manufacturing cluster.
Initially, almost everything may be imported.
That is acceptable.
But the Indian engineers operating those factories learn the equipment.
Indian suppliers begin producing cables, motors, controllers, sensors and mechanical components.
Indian software companies develop factory-management software around the machinery.
Indian universities work on machine vision and industrial AI.
Indian startups develop cheaper alternatives.
Eventually, India is no longer merely the customer.
It becomes part of the technology ecosystem.
That is the model India should pursue across sectors.
Semiconductors Are the Perfect Example
India's semiconductor ambitions should be viewed in exactly this way.
A semiconductor ecosystem cannot be created simply by building a fab.
It requires:
- process technology
- semiconductor equipment
- materials
- chemicals
- PDKs
- design tools
- IP
- EDA capability
- chip designers
- packaging
- testing
- substrates
- power electronics
- controllers
- software
- customers
The first generation will inevitably contain foreign technology.
That is not failure.
The failure would be remaining dependent on the same foreign technology forever.
India's objective should be to climb the ladder.
Learn the process. Improve the process. Build the supply chain. Develop the IP. Design the chip. Manufacture the chip. Export the chip.
The Same Logic Applies to Open Source
There is another dimension to this strategy that is often overlooked.
India should not think about technological sovereignty only in terms of factories and physical products.
Software matters just as much.
Consider the difference between purchasing a proprietary software subscription indefinitely and participating in an open ecosystem that India can inspect, modify, maintain and develop.
India does not necessarily need to create an Indian replacement for every major foreign software product.
It can instead build around global open-source foundations.
Linux.
Open document formats.
Open-source office productivity.
Open databases.
Open-source cloud infrastructure.
RISC-V.
Open silicon.
Open AI models and tools.
Open standards.
Open developer ecosystems.
The objective is not isolation.
The objective is the ability to understand and control the critical layers.
If an Indian developer can inspect the system, modify it, improve it and build businesses around it, the technology creates a different kind of economic relationship.
India Should Become a Technology Student Again
There is an uncomfortable truth hidden inside all of this.
India has spent decades thinking about development primarily in terms of consumption.
More cars.
More phones.
More appliances.
More computers.
More imported technology.
Consumption is not inherently bad.
A growing middle class should consume.
But consumption cannot be the final destination of development.
At some point, the country must ask:
Who makes the thing we are consuming?
Then:
Who makes the machine that makes the thing?
Then:
Who makes the machine that makes that machine?
That is where genuine industrial power begins.
The Industrialisation Flywheel
Consider the following cycle:
Import technology
↓
Learn technology
↓
Manufacture locally
↓
Develop suppliers
↓
Improve technology
↓
Develop Indian IP
↓
Export technology
↓
Use export revenue to acquire the next generation
↓
Repeat
This is the flywheel India needs.
Foreign technology is not the enemy of self-reliance.
Permanent inability to learn from foreign technology is.
The Goal Is Not Autarky
India should also be careful with the phrase “self-sufficiency.”
Complete self-sufficiency is neither realistic nor necessarily desirable.
No modern economy efficiently manufactures everything it consumes.
India should instead aim for strategic sufficiency.
Strategic sufficiency means India possesses enough domestic capability that the denial of foreign technology does not bring the country to a standstill.
India can still import specialised components.
India can still purchase foreign products.
Indian companies can still use foreign technology.
But India should maintain domestic competence in the technologies that underpin its economic and national security.
The distinction is crucial.
Self-sufficiency says: “We must make everything.”
Strategic sufficiency says: “We must be capable of making what matters.”
A New Definition of Strategic Autonomy
This leads to a more useful definition of strategic autonomy.
Strategic autonomy does not mean refusing foreign technology.
It means refusing permanent technological helplessness.
India can buy a semiconductor manufacturing machine from Europe.
It can buy industrial robots from Japan.
It can use American AI technology.
It can purchase components from China.
It can continue defence cooperation with Russia.
It can participate in BRICS.
It can deepen relations with the European Union.
It can work with the United States.
It can cooperate with Japan and South Korea.
None of these relationships need to contradict each other.
The common denominator should be India.
Every relationship should make India more capable, not merely more comfortable.
The Indian Test for Every International Partnership
Perhaps India needs a simple strategic scorecard.
Before entering a major technology or industrial partnership, ask:
- What are we buying?
- What are we learning?
- What are we manufacturing?
- What intellectual property will India develop?
- What Indian companies will emerge?
- What components can eventually be localised?
- Can Indian engineers modify the technology?
- Can Indian universities participate?
- Can the technology eventually be exported?
- What happens if the foreign supplier disappears tomorrow?
The last question may be the most important.
If the answer is “India has no alternative,” the relationship has created dependence.
If the answer is:
“We have learned enough to build an alternative,”
then the relationship has created sovereignty.
India Should Be Pragmatic About Every Bloc
This philosophy applies to BRICS.
It applies to the European Union.
It applies to the United States.
It applies to the Indo-Pacific.
It applies to every future grouping that India joins.
India should never ask:
“Which bloc should we belong to?”
It should ask:
“Which relationship helps India become stronger?”
If BRICS provides useful markets, capital, energy relationships or diplomatic leverage, India should use it.
If Europe provides advanced industrial technology, semiconductor expertise, robotics, machinery and research partnerships, India should use it.
If America provides frontier AI, aerospace, computing and scientific capabilities, India should use it.
If Japan provides manufacturing expertise, precision engineering and robotics, India should use it.
If China provides components that India currently cannot economically manufacture, India can buy them while simultaneously building alternatives.
If Russia provides strategically useful technologies, India should use them where appropriate.
There is no ideological contradiction in any of this.
The Ultimate Objective: Learn and Grow
India's greatest opportunity over the next few decades is not to become the country that imports the most sophisticated technology.
It is to become the country that learns fastest from the technology it imports.
A foreign semiconductor fab should create Indian semiconductor engineers.
A European robot should create Indian roboticists.
A Japanese machine tool should create Indian machine-tool manufacturers.
An American AI system should create Indian AI researchers.
A Chinese component should eventually create an Indian component manufacturer.
An open-source project should create Indian developers who can improve it.
A foreign factory should eventually create an Indian industrial ecosystem.
And an imported technology should ideally create the capability to build the next generation locally.
India's Real Choice
India does not face a simple choice between East and West.
It faces a choice between two models of development.
The first is:
Consume → import → assemble → repeat.
The second is:
Import → learn → manufacture → improve → design → export.
The first model can create a large market.
The second can create a technological civilisation.
India should choose the second.
Own the Capability, Not Necessarily Every Component
Perhaps this is the most important lesson from India's current geopolitical moment.
India does not need to manufacture everything.
India does not need to leave every international grouping.
India does not need to choose permanently between China, Russia, Europe, America, Japan or anyone else.
India needs to become sufficiently capable that it can work with all of them without becoming subordinate to any of them.
That means being willing to cooperate with a friend.
It means being willing to transact with a competitor.
It means being willing to learn from a rival.
It means being willing to abandon an arrangement that no longer serves Indian interests.
And above all, it means understanding that the purpose of international economic engagement is not merely to obtain things.
It is to obtain knowledge, capability, scale, technology, markets and eventually independence of choice.
The Sovereign Principle
India's next phase of development should therefore be guided by a very simple principle:
Do not ask only what India can buy.
Ask what India can learn.
Do not ask only how many foreign companies are investing.
Ask how many Indian companies emerge around them.
Do not ask only how many products are manufactured in India.
Ask how much of the underlying technology is understood in India.
Do not ask only how large India's market becomes.
Ask how much of the technology serving that market India controls.
And do not ask whether India belongs to the East or the West.
Ask whether India is becoming stronger.
That is the real meaning of strategic autonomy.
India should trade with everyone.
Partner with everyone.
Learn from everyone.
Compete with everyone.
And depend permanently on as few as possible.
Because the ultimate objective is not isolation.
It is freedom of choice.
India does not need to build everything alone. It needs to become capable of building whatever matters.
No comments:
Post a Comment