Most Indian publications had been unanimous in their verdict on the Goa Declaration that consensus over terrorism has eluded Brics nations despite a valiant effort from New Delhi. The Indian media's concern over China's role in the joint statement was explicit, with some going on to accuse Beijing of undercutting India's attempt to isolate Pakistan from yet another global forum.

These observations, while not entirely inaccurate, failed however to take into account that absolutism has no place in foreign policy. If we temper down our immature expectation that countries will junk their specific strategic interests and unanimously occupy a hard ideological position on any issue, in this case, the global scourge of terrorism, we may find that the eighth annual Brics Summit has actually been quite successful for India.

For a grouping of mostly emerging economies that had been founded on the principles of greater economic cooperation and facilitation of better in-house trade relations, the Goa Declaration devoted five meaty, strongly-worded paragraphs that mentioned the word "terrorism" well over 20 times. It also included - for the first time - concern on countries allowing their territories to be used for terrorist activities and called for "dismantling of terrorist bases". Both of these reflect India's position on cross-border terrorism.

There had been clear references to chemical and biological terrorism , a motif that recently cropped up during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reference to Pakistan using chemical weapons against its own citizens in Balochistan. The Goa Declaration also called upon "all nations to work together to expedite the adoption of the comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the UN General Assembly without any further delay."

As The Indian Express points out, expediting the adoption of CCIT has returned to the BRICS agenda after getting dropped in 2015 UFA Declaration, signaling that NSA Ajit Doval's effort has paid off.

Also Read: 8th BRICS Summit opens tomorrow in Goa!

By Prakriti Neogi