New Delhi, July 8 -- In geopolitics, symbolism and substance often march hand in hand. The recent BRICS summit in Brazil is a case in point. While Western media largely reduced the event to a footnote, dismissing it as just another gathering of emerging economies, the joint declaration issued by the BRICS bloc signals something far more profound: the slow but undeniable erosion of Western hegemony and the ascent of a multipolar world order.

The BRICS declaration underscores what is increasingly self-evident: multipolarity is no longer an aspiration; it is a geopolitical fact. For decades, the world has operated under a system shaped by the neoliberal values of the so-called "Washington Consensus," a system that has too often served as a ...