New Delhi, Sept. 15 -- Brics was born as a geo-economic idea. It was never intended to be an anti-Western alliance. Yet geopolitics has steadily transformed it into something larger: a platform through which the Global South seeks greater strategic autonomy, a stronger voice in global governance and a more multipolar international order.

The original Brics-Brazil, Russia, India and China-were brought together by a simple proposition: their economic weight was rising faster than their representation in institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. South Africa joined in 2011, and the creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) in 2015 reflected the group's developmental ambitions.

The objective was to reform the exi...