Did Bangladesh Miss a Major BRICS Opportunity?

The 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit is being held in New Delhi, India, on September 12–13, 2026. Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and other major world leaders have gathered in the same city at a time when India and China, despite years of border disputes and deep mistrust, are again looking for ways to improve relations, expand trade and restore cooperation.

But Bangladesh’s prime minister, Tarique Rahman, is not there. The question at the heart of the Bangladesh BRICS opportunity is whether this was simply one summit Bangladesh decided not to attend, or whether post-Hasina Bangladesh missed a much larger diplomatic opportunity.

BRICS began with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and later expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. According to India’s official 2026 BRICS information, the grouping now has 11 members, representing 49.5 percent of the world’s population, 40 percent of global GDP and 26 percent of global trade.

BRICS is not a military alliance like NATO. Its wider purpose is to strengthen the influence of the Global South, increase the role of developing countries in global institutions and create more economic and financial options.

This is where the Bangladesh BRICS opportunity becomes important. Bangladesh is not a BRICS member, but it has already been a member of the New Development Bank, or NDB, since 2021.

According to the New Development Bank’s Bangladesh factsheet, Bangladesh had three approved NDB projects worth about $450 million by the end of 2025. In other words, Bangladesh may not yet sit at the BRICS political table, but it entered one of BRICS’ most important financial institutions years ago.

That connection developed during Sheikh Hasina’s government. In 2023, Hasina attended the BRICS-Africa Outreach and BRICS Plus Dialogue in South Africa, where she called for BRICS to become a “lighthouse” in a multipolar world. Her participation in the 2023 BRICS outreach dialogue also gave Bangladesh direct access to leaders from many of the world’s major emerging economies.

There is no need to argue that every part of Hasina’s foreign policy was successful. But one feature of her approach was clear: Bangladesh maintained a close relationship with India while keeping its doors open to China, Russia and emerging institutions such as BRICS and the NDB.

The picture has changed in post-Hasina Bangladesh. Relations between the current BNP government and India have not fully normalized, while ties with Pakistan have strengthened. Dhaka has also shown interest in closer cooperation with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, including possible participation in the Makkah Pact—a development I previously examined in The Times of Israel in the context of Bangladesh’s changing relationship with India.

There is nothing inherently wrong with improving relations with Pakistan. Bangladesh is a sovereign country and has every right to build good relations with Pakistan, India, China, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Japan or any other partner.

The problem begins if closer ties with Pakistan come at the cost of creating so much distance from India that Bangladesh starts losing wider diplomatic opportunities. This year’s BRICS Summit brings that question into focus.

India invited Tarique Rahman to the BRICS Outreach session in his capacity as the current BIMSTEC chair. India also said that this invitation was separate from an earlier invitation for him to make a bilateral visit to India after becoming prime minister.

Dhaka’s position was that the Bangladeshi prime minister’s first visit to India should be a proper bilateral visit rather than one attached to a multilateral summit. Bangladesh therefore decided that Tarique Rahman would not attend the September 12–13 meeting, with the government publicly explaining that the invitation was to the BIMSTEC chair rather than specifically to Bangladesh’s prime minister.

There may be diplomatic logic behind that decision. But in international politics, an invitation is not only about protocol or prestige. It is also about access and opportunity.

Had Tarique Rahman gone to New Delhi, he would not simply have been meeting Narendra Modi. Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and leaders from Iran, the UAE, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and other major BRICS countries were also there.

That is why this was potentially much more than an India visit. It was access to a room containing many of the most important political and economic actors in the emerging multipolar world.

The argument is not that Bangladesh should choose India over Pakistan. The point is that closer ties with Pakistan should not come at the cost of closing doors to India, BRICS or Bangladesh’s wider diplomacy.

India and China themselves provide the clearest example. Their soldiers fought a deadly border clash in 2020, their territorial dispute remains unresolved and strategic mistrust has not disappeared.

Yet Modi and Xi met on the sidelines of the New Delhi summit and discussed stronger business and transport links, market access and the recovery of bilateral relations. They did not wait for every dispute to disappear before talking; they are talking because their national interests require them to keep channels open.

Why should Bangladesh not follow the same principle with India?

Bangladesh may have legitimate concerns involving the border, water-sharing, Sheikh Hasina’s stay in India and political mistrust between Dhaka and New Delhi. Those issues should not be ignored.

But diplomacy is not only about talking to friends. It is also about dealing with countries where disagreements exist while protecting national interests.

This is where talk of a “Pakistan trap” needs to be handled carefully. There is not enough evidence to conclude that Pakistan deliberately designed a strategy to isolate Bangladesh from India or BRICS.

But Bangladesh could still create a trap for itself. If enthusiasm for closer Pakistan-centered security or diplomatic cooperation leads Dhaka to increase its distance from India and, in the process, reduce access to BRICS and other major powers, the strategic cost would ultimately fall on Bangladesh.

Because BRICS does not simply mean India. It also means China, Russia, Brazil, Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, South Africa and a wider network of emerging economies.

Staying away from an important BRICS platform because of problems with India could therefore hurt Dhaka more than Delhi.

Bangladesh’s foreign policy should not be reduced to the old question of “India or Pakistan?” That question is too narrow for a multipolar world.

Bangladesh can improve relations with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey without losing India. It can work closely with India without abandoning China. It can deepen ties with China without giving up the United States, and it can work with Washington without closing the door to Russia.

The better question is how much Bangladesh can gain from all of them at the same time.

For a small or medium-sized country, one of the greatest strategic advantages is keeping as many doors open as possible. Choosing one camp too early can reduce options rather than increase influence.

For the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh’s foreign-policy choices are not merely questions of diplomacy in Dhaka. The CHT sits in a strategically sensitive region beside India and close to the wider India-China geopolitical space. If Bangladesh’s alignment with India, China or Pakistan changes significantly, the effects can eventually reach the hills through security policy, regional connectivity, development decisions and the political environment surrounding the still-unresolved CHT Accord. I have examined this India-Pakistan dimension of CHT politics previously.

The Bangladesh BRICS opportunity did not begin in 2026. Bangladesh had already entered the BRICS financial system when its NDB membership became effective in September 2021.

During Sheikh Hasina’s time, Bangladesh had reached the door of that emerging economic architecture. In 2026, many of the most important leaders of the BRICS world gathered in Bangladesh’s immediate neighborhood, yet Bangladesh was not in the room.

Perhaps this was simply one summit Dhaka decided to skip. One missed meeting does not permanently close the BRICS door.

But it may still be a warning. While managing tensions with India and building new relationships with Pakistan and others, Bangladesh must be careful not to shrink its own diplomatic space.

Major powers compete fiercely, yet they often keep talking because they understand that diplomacy is about preserving options. Bangladesh should do the same.

Its foreign policy does not need to be pro-India, pro-Pakistan, pro-China or pro-America. It needs to be pro-Bangladesh.

So did Bangladesh miss a major BRICS opportunity in New Delhi? Perhaps the full answer will become clearer with time.

But one lesson is already difficult to ignore: in a multipolar world, countries gain strategic space by opening more doors, not by closing one every time they open another.

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