Ignoring the Disaster in Nepal Was a BRICS Own Goal
“Don’t think that if someone has died in your house, festive bands won’t be playing in the house next door.” This is one of the aphorisms that mark the chapters in Mohsin Khan’s lovely and heartbreaking novel, ably translated by Maaz bin Bilal as Allah Miyan’s Workshop. If life imitates art, then Nepal saw this happen with the big BRICS jamboree happening in New Delhi.
More than a thousand people have died, around 5,000 are still missing, and the estimated cost of the recovery from the Tibet-Nepal floods is almost US $ 5 billion, for a country whose entire GDP is less than US $ 50 billion. And yet the subject was entirely missing as India hosted the BRICS Summit a few days ago. In the entire New Delhi Declaration resulting from the meeting, the word “climate” is mentioned 34 times. In the 140 points, Nepal is not mentioned once, and only points 82 and 83 on early warning systems, disaster management, and climate resilient infrastructure could be read as a reference to the disaster. If you tried really hard.
There are political reasons for this, of course, and the debate within Nepal is fierce. While one columnist argues that Nepal’s non-participation is linked to the “inward-looking stance” of its new government, another – a former Member of Parliament – argues that it is a wise move as a way to avoid having to take sides between its large neighbours (India and China) while being open to cooperation with the United States.
Whether Nepal chose to avoid the BRICS summit, or was merely not invited (none of India’s neighbouring countries were with the exception of the prime minister of Bangladesh as the head of the BIMSTEC bloc, but he chose not to attend) is besides the point. For the two most populous countries – China and India, who coincidentally are also the current and next chair of the BRICS grouping – Nepal is a neighbour. To absolutely ignore its tragedy was a choice, and a loud one.
Also read: Climate Finance, Adaptation and Disaster Resilience Feature Prominently In BRICS Declaration
On August 29, 2026 the Ministry of External Affairs released a statement stating that the Indian prime minister “underscored that India stands in solidarity with Nepal”. After the BRICS summit, the citizens of Nepal might legitimately ask what, if anything beyond immediate relief work, that means.
China has its own cross to bear. During his 2016 visit to Bangladesh, the Chinese premier, Xi Jinping, had grandly stated, “Friendship between our two countries dates back a long time. In fact, both the Chinese and Bangladeshi people drink water from the same river, known as Yarlung Zangbo River in China and Jamuna River in Bangladesh.” It was a great line, but seeing that the Chinese – or at least the Tibetans under Chinese governance – drink from the same river as the Nepali citizens, the devastation along the riverbanks of the Trishuli takes on an ominous quality. As an upper riparian in a geographic zone where climate change is making disasters deadlier and more frequent, China has responsibilities it is failing to attend to.
Maybe, though, the greatest damage is to the idea of BRICS itself. As a grouping challenging the post-World War II global governance structure led by the US and its allies, this was a clear and urgent opportunity to show how it could be different. In fact, it was also an opportunity to highlight how developed countries have gotten rich while pursuing carbon-heavy growth patterns while countries that have emitted a fraction of the carbon dioxide heating up the planet have been left to pay the cost. They did not have to actually do much, they could merely point to the hypocrisy of the US and its allies: the polluters who never pay.
The requirements were so little. All it required was a minute of silence for the numerous dead, or even just a short sentence of condolence. Instead, like the homeless who are removed from the roads so that they may not displease the sight of visiting VIPs, the Nepal tragedy simply disappeared as a topic. The rallying cry of BRICS, much as the rallying cry of the Nonaligned Movement and other institutions of the Global South, is that it is not just the rich countries that matter. What the silence over Nepal at the BRICS summit conveyed, though, was that they do not. It does not matter if the US and its allies shape the global order, or whether China, India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa and others do. The poor waiting for help, the dead waiting to be found, can keep waiting. Nothing changes for those most in need of change.
Omair Ahmad has worked as a political analyst and journalist in India, the US and the UK.
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