The Southern Alignment

As protectionism hardens in the North, India and Brazil are discovering that shared history, democratic instinct and strategic ambition can still make south–south cooperation matter.

In an international system increasingly shaped by tariffs, technology controls and geopolitical blocs, the world’s large democracies of the Global South are searching for ballast. Few pairings illustrate this better than India and Brazil – both continental powers born of colonial extraction, now attempting to turn scale into strategic autonomy.

Brazil, South America’s largest country, sits amid a ring of smaller neighbours and vast natural abundance. India occupies a similarly dominant position in South Asia. Both emerged from European empires with fragile institutions, deep inequality and an instinctive scepticism of great-power tutelage. That parallel history now underpins a renewed effort to give south–south cooperation real content rather than rhetorical warmth.

The recent visit of Brazil President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to India timed around the Global AI Impact Summit was therefore more than ceremonial. It reflected a shared judgment that the old vocabulary of non-alignment is no longer sufficient, but that strategic dependence on any single power is riskier still.

India has been central to reframing that debate. Under Narendra Modi, New Delhi has sought to rebrand its post-Cold War hedging as leadership of the Global South. Three high-level conferences on southern development priorities have signalled an ambition to move beyond nostalgia for the Non-Aligned Movement towards something more transactional: infrastructure, digital public goods, climate finance and supply-chain resilience. Brazil, which has long oscillated between Atlanticism and southern solidarity, now appears receptive.

Tangible Results

The results were tangible. Nearly ten memoranda of understanding were signed, covering agriculture, energy, critical minerals, digital infrastructure and climate cooperation.

While bilateral commerce between the countries has grown by over a quarter in 2023, it remains modest for economies of their size. The declared aim to double trade to $30bn by 2030 will require faster customs clearance, deeper agricultural integration and service-sector openness. Brazil’s concerns about the weaponisation of tariffs resonate strongly in New Delhi, which has learned the costs of overreliance on external markets.

Technology has become the sharpest edge of this partnership. India’s experience with digital public infrastructure, be it payments, identity and welfare delivery, offers Brazil a model for scaling inclusion without surrendering sovereignty. Cooperation on semiconductors, artificial intelligence and blockchain is no longer aspirational; it is strategic. Control over data, chips and critical minerals now shapes national power as decisively as oil once did.

Natural Bridge

Energy and climate form another natural bridge. Both countries see renewable energy, biofuels and clean hydrogen not only as climate imperatives but as industrial opportunities. Joint research in oil, gas and green technologies reflects a shared refusal to accept a development path dictated entirely by richer nations that industrialised first and decarbonise later.

Security cooperation, though quieter, is also deepening. Maritime training, naval research and submarine technology signal recognition that democratic autonomy requires credible defence capacity. Brazil’s consistent support for India’s stance against terrorism, and intelligence-sharing on extremist threats, adds ballast to what might otherwise seem a purely economic alignment.

Geopolitically, India and Brazil are converging on reformist multilateralism. Brazil’s support for India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council is not altruism; it reflects frustration with institutions that no longer mirror global realities. Both countries see forums such as BRICS and the G20 as vehicles to amplify southern priorities rather than echo northern disputes. Climate finance, development lending and technology access dominate their agenda.

There is, of course, a risk of overstatement. South–south cooperation has a long history of grand promises and thin delivery. Bureaucratic inertia, domestic politics and economic volatility can derail the best-laid plans. Yet this partnership feels unusually grounded. The agreements are specific, the timelines realistic, the incentives aligned.

What distinguishes this moment is the context here. As globalisation fragments and great powers retreat into economic nationalism, middle-income democracies face a choice: compete alone, or collaborate deliberately. India and Brazil have chosen the latter course out of self-interest.

If the 20th century belonged to alliances forged in war, the 21st may yet reward partnerships built on development. For the Global South, the sun is not merely rising; it is learning how to shine on its own terms.

(The writer is a foreign affairs expert. Views personal.)