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The grand event of the 18th BRICS summit has started at the Bharat Mandapam in the capital New Delhi, hosted by India. Top leaders of the world’s major emerging economies including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian have gathered on Delhi soil. While on one hand it is being considered a historic milestone for the Global South and emerging markets, on the other hand, a strange diplomatic silence and uneasiness is being clearly felt regarding this event in America, Europe and neighboring country Pakistan. Limiting the visibility of the Delhi Summit from the prime time of major TV channels of the Western media and the questions being raised on its own status within Pakistan have exposed the extent to which this great brainstorming has created a huge upheaval in the balance of power in the world.
If we look carefully at the coverage of the BRICS summit in the Western world, on major mainstream American and European broadcast channels (e.g. CNN, BBC, Fox News) the summit is not being given the same prime time and live screen space that G7 or NATO meetings usually get. However, technically it would not be right to call it a complete ‘blackout’, because leading economic and strategic publications like Bloomberg, Reuters, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal are keeping a close eye on this meeting.
This situation is not actually a ‘blackout’, but a deliberate strategy of ‘selective coverage’ and low visibility. The Western media want to avoid showing that a new multilateral financial and political structure is emerging so strongly in parallel to the US dollar and Western hegemony in a world that includes more than half of the world’s population and is the main axis of energy trade.
A clear pattern is visible in the coverage by Western analysts and media outlets. The main focus of his reporting is to prove that BRICS is turning into an ‘anti-West’ (anti-West) block, where Russian President Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are trying to neutralize Western sanctions.
However, in the same coverage, American and European think tanks are also forced to openly praise India’s strategic autonomy. The Western media has repeatedly highlighted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership is ensuring that BRICS does not become a puppet of any one country (especially China) or an arena for anti-American propaganda, but remains a purely unbiased platform for economic reforms and a multipolar global order.
The real concern about BRICS in Western capitals is more about changes in the economic system than political statements. The Delhi Summit’s proposals to increase bilateral trade in local currencies, interlinking national digital currencies for cross-border payments (Digital Payment Grid) and creating alternatives to SWIFT have brought sweat on the forehead of Washington and European banks.
If the US dollar’s dominance over international oil, gas and trade supplies diminishes, the West’s sanctions power and financial clout will be forever weakened. For this reason, every announcement of Delhi is being scrutinized on the business pages of western newspapers.
While the western media is maintaining strategic silence, there is open conflict and great uneasiness being seen in the media and political circles of Pakistan regarding the Delhi Summit. In Pakistani media (Dawn, Express Tribune etc.) and TV debates on social media, tough questions are being raised on the foreign policy of our own government:
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Why is Pakistan standing in the waiting list: Pakistani analysts are racking their brains over the fact that when countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, UAE and Indonesia have reached the main stage of BRICS, then why Pakistan, which claims to be close to China and Russia, remains stuck at the main door of BRICS.
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India’s strong veto and diplomatic stature: Pakistani TV experts (like Qamar Cheema, Shakeel Chaudhary etc.) are openly admitting that due to India’s tough stance and international credibility, unless Pakistan looks into its own backyard on terrorism and cross-border policy, its entry into BRICS is impossible.
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Infrastructure and Economic Comparison: Pakistani journalists are making fun of their own system by comparing that India is providing security, modern hotels and technical infrastructure to more than 20 global leaders in Delhi at a jiffy, while Pakistan also lacks the primary resources for such big events.
The personal presence of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the Delhi conference has also given a big blow to the Western and Pakistani narrative. Guterres has clearly acknowledged that the old rules in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and Bretton Woods institutions will no longer work and countries like India should get a permanent place in the global decision-making process. This clearly shows that BRICS is no longer a marginalized organization, but has become the most powerful center for redesigning the existing system of the world.
In short, the ‘low visibility’ of the Western media reflects its geopolitical helplessness and fear, while the outcry of the Pakistani media is a result of its regional isolation. This 18th BRICS summit going on in Delhi is proving that today India is not just a partner but has become a world friend who sets the global agenda by standing like a bridge between East and West. The world is now going to decide its next economic pace not through the filter of western media, but from the new direction decided from Delhi’s Bharat Mandapam.