BRICS +

What started as a seemingly simple looking idea – to bring together a group of nations that are projected to become the next big economies and that can also act as a buffer against the hegemony of the ‘big nations’ has come of age.

All this rested on the belief that these emerging economies have a common purpose and supposedly common grievances and that the possibility of shared economic prosperity is the biggest glue that will bind them together.

Now with the benefit of hindsight one can safely say that indeed a nation needs economic growth but if that’s the only thing that binds the pack together it’s rather a slippery slope because each nation has its own share of demons it has to face.

Like all good things come with an expiry date, International organizations too have a built in expiry date. Sometimes they are kept alive on a ventilator hoping for a revival in future, others die and some others by chance of fate get revived by virtue of current common interests.

The decision to add Iran and Saudi Arabia among a few other countries forces one to think exactly all that. Why them? Why Now? What Next?.

Now only future holds the answer to these questions but one thing can be said for certain is that this grouping will go through a trial by fire and whether it survives depends on not the group members per se, but their ability to hold onto their present positions in the grand chess until some new(possibly already) powerful player that will dictate their choices from behind the scenes.