India, Sept. 13 -- When BRICS leaders of eleven member states and representatives of ten partner countries gather in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September, the members alone will represent nearly half of humanity and around two-fifths of world output. That is considerable weight. But weight is not the same as meaning. At twenty, BRICS has accumulated the first faster than the second.

BRICS wants reformed institutions, fairer trade and a multipolar order. Fair enough. But what does BRICS believe in? Wanting is not believing. The G7, for all its contradictions, can still state an organising idea in a sentence. BRICS cannot. It has an agenda, a bank, a summit calendar, partners and aspirants. What it still lacks is a political ethic strong enoug...