Indian Council of World Affairs

Abstract: India’s engagement with both Quad and BRICS reflects a pragmatic de-risking strategy with each partnership addressing different vulnerabilities across the critical mineral supply chain. 

Introduction 

The statements issued at the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting[i] and the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting[ii], held in New Delhi in May 2026, underscore growing strategic importance of critical minerals and resilient supply chains in contemporary geopolitics. Critical minerals have become a core aspect of the energy transition, technological competitiveness, and economic security, actively shaping the foreign policies of many countries. This paper will examine India’s approach to de-risking critical minerals supply chains by analysing its efforts to strengthen domestic capabilities alongside its engagement with the Quad and BRICS, it argues that India seeks to build resilience through differentiated partnerships, where de-risking does not imply disengagement from existing global networks but rather the reduction of vulnerabilities arising from excessive concentration in supply chains. 

Critical Minerals and Strategic Vulnerability

For India, critical minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and rare earth elements, are essential to the advancement of many sectors, including high-tech electronics, telecommunications, semiconductor manufacturing, transport, and defence. They are also vital to power the renewable energy technologies required to meet the ‘Net Zero’ commitments and enable transition to a low-emission economy.[iii] The strategic importance of such critical minerals stems not only from their limited availability but also from the structure of their global supply chains.

As countries accelerate clean energy transitions and compete in emerging technologies, access to and control over critical minerals have become linked to industrial competitiveness, economic security, and foreign policy. The International Energy Agency has highlighted that demand for minerals essential to clean energy technologies is expected to increase significantly, creating new pressures on global supply chains.[iv] However, the challenge is not simply mineral scarcity, but the concentration of capabilities across extraction, processing, and advanced manufacturing.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report Critical Minerals: Critical Decision (2026) indicates that critical mineral supply chains remain concentrated in the hands of a limited number of actors, creating vulnerabilities for economies dependent on external suppliers.[v] While upstream mineral reserves are unevenly distributed across the world, refining and processing capacities are concentrated in only a few countries. This has made midstream capabilities such as separation, processing, and refining increasingly important in determining supply-chain resilience.

China’s dominant position, with an estimated 60-70% of global extraction and 85-95% of processing capacity in critical mineral-processing segments, shows how midstream concentration in global supply chains can become a structural vulnerability.[vi] The challenge, therefore, extends beyond dependence on a single country to the concentration of critical midstream capabilities among a limited number of countries and production hubs. Control over critical mineral supply chains increasingly depends less on ownership of reserves alone and more on capabilities in processing, refining and downstream technologies. For an emerging economy such as India, addressing these vulnerabilities requires a strategy that combines the development of domestic industrial capacity with diversified external partnerships.

India’s Multi-Level Approach to De-risking

National Critical Mineral Mission: Building Domestic Capacity

The launch of the National Critical Mineral Mission (NCMM) in 2025 marks India’s efforts to build a comprehensive ecosystem encompassing domestic exploration, overseas acquisition, recycling and processing capabilities.[vii] The Mission recognises that resilient supply-chain cannot be met through external partnerships alone; domestic strengthening of capacity remains essential to reduce vulnerability to external disruptions and enable India to participate more effectively in global supply chains.

The NCMM provides the domestic foundation that enables India to leverage external partnerships more effectively. While India can diversify access to mineral resources through international cooperation, the ability to process and integrate these resources into advanced manufacturing systems requires domestic technological and industrial capacity. Therefore, the objective becomes to build and strengthen sufficient resilience to avoid excessive dependence on concentrated supply networks.[viii] Diversified international engagement becomes vital to this aspect. The Quad and BRICS are two examples of India’s approach to cooperation on critical minerals.

Quad: Strengthening Resilient Supply Chains

The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework, announced by Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, focuses on strengthening cooperation across critical mineral supply chains by investing in processing capacity, recycling, and technological collaboration.[ix] The India-US Critical Minerals Framework to boost joint mining, processing, recycling, investments, and the inclusion of India in the US-led Pax-Silica reflects the broader recognition that supply-chain resilience requires coordination beyond access to raw materials.

For India, cooperation within the Quad complements domestic capability building by leveraging the comparative strengths of its partnership. Australia’s lithium mineral resource and processing base, Japan’s metallurgical and technological expertise, and the United States’ financial power and focus on supply-chain diversification create opportunities for cooperation across different stages of the supply chain.[x] The Quad framework addresses vulnerabilities arising from excessive concentration rather than merely seeking alternative mineral sources.

The significance of such partnerships lies in addressing the midstream challenge, since access to mineral resources does not automatically translate into strategic capability unless countries develop refining, processing, and downstream industrial ecosystems.[xi] Quad cooperation provides India with opportunities to strengthen these areas through advanced technology partnerships and coordinated investments.

BRICS: Expanding Resource Partnerships and Economic Options

India’s engagement with BRICS represents another dimension of critical minerals diversification policy. Although BRICS does not have a dedicated critical minerals supply chain framework. Nonetheless, it provides India with opportunities to engage with resource-rich economies, expand upstream resource partnerships, and strengthen cooperation across the Global South.[xii]

The relevance of BRICS lies not in replicating Quad mechanisms but in complementing India’s broader diversification strategy. Several of the BRICS expanded members and partner countries possess significant critical mineral resources, including up to 72% of the world’s rare earths, 75% of the world’s manganese, 50% of the world’s graphite, 28% of the world’s nickel, and 10% of the world’s copper.[xiii] Engagement through BRICS significantly expands India’s diplomatic and economic space by enabling partnerships beyond a single supply chain network, through both multilateral and bilateral frameworks.

The agreement between India and Brazil on critical minerals and rare earth elements exemplifies such efforts to strengthen cooperation with resource-rich partners while expanding collaboration in technology and sustainable development.[xiv] Such initiatives show that India’s BRICS engagement extends beyond discussions of institutional reform to include practical economic cooperation.

At the same time, India has emphasised the importance of preventing strategic resources from becoming instruments of geopolitical leverage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during the BRICS Summit in 2025, highlighted that countries should not weaponise critical minerals, technology, or supply chains.[xv] This position reflects India’s broader concern that excessive concentration in strategic sectors can create systemic vulnerabilities, particularly for developing economies.

Conclusion

India’s engagement with the Quad and BRICS should not be viewed through the lens of competing alignments. Instead, it reflects a differentiated approach to managing vulnerabilities across critical minerals supply chains. The Quad contributes to downstream technology-oriented supply chain resilience, while BRICS expands avenues for upstream resource partnerships and engagement with emerging economies. Completing these external partnerships, the NCMM provides the domestic foundation required for long-term resilience.

The effectiveness of this derisking approach will depend heavily on sustaining the coordination between domestic capability-building and external partnerships. While the NCMM strengthens India's industrial foundations, continued engagement across platforms such as the Quad and BRICS can expand opportunities for technology collaboration, investment, resource partnerships, and the development of resilient supply chains. Rather than viewing these platforms as competing alignments that require balancing, India should continue to leverage their complementary strengths to diversify strategic partnerships and reduce structural vulnerabilities across the critical mineral value chain.

As critical minerals become increasingly central to energy, economic, and national security, India's multi-aligned approach provides the flexibility to engage different partners according to specific strategic and economic requirements. Forthcoming stages should therefore include translating diplomatic leverage into industrial capability by investing in processing, refining, and collaborating on technological advancement. The future of strategic autonomy will depend not only on maintaining flexibility in its external partnerships but also on building resilience against structural supply-chain dependencies.

*****

*Prajwal T V, Research Intern, Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi
Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal. 

Endnotes 

[i] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, “Transcript of Special Briefing by MEA on Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (May 26, 2026)”, New Delhi, 26 May 2026. https://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings?dtl/41239

[ii] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, “Chair's Statement and Outcome Document at BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting”, New Delhi, 15 May 2026. https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents?dtl/41144/Chairs_Statement_and_Outcome_Document_at_BRICS_Foreign_Ministers_Meeting_May_15_2026

[iii] Government of India, “Critical Minerals For India: Report of the Committee on Identification of Critical Minerals,” Ministry of Mines, 2023. https://mines.gov.in/admin/download/649d4212cceb01688027666.pdf Accessed on June 30, 2026.

[iv] International Energy Agency, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions, International Energy Agency. https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions. Accessed on June 16, 2026.

[v] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Critical Minerals: Critical Decisions. pp. 8, UNCTAD, 2026. https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/gds2025d5_en.pdf. Accessed on June 15, 2026.

[vi] Bonnie S. Glaser, Abigail Wulf, “China’s Role in Critical Mineral Supply Chains,” The German Marshall Fund of the United States, 02 August 2023. https://www.gmfus.org/news/chinas-role-critical-mineral-supply-chains. Accessed on June 16, 2026.

[vii] Government of India, “National Critical Mineral Mission”, Ministry of Mines, 2025. https://mines.gov.in/admin/storage/ckeditor/DAY_1_PPT_4_1737542656.pdf. Accessed on June 15, 2026.

[viii] Anindita Sinh and Constantino Xavier, “Partnerships for Self-Reliance: Internationalising India’s Critical Minerals Sector”, Centre for Social and Economic Progress, 13 November 2025. https://csep.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Partnerships-for-Self-Reliance.pdf. Accessed on June 16, 2026.

[ix] Ministry of External Affairs, “Quad Critical Minerals Initiative Framework Among India, Australia, Japan and the United States”, 2026. https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents?dtl/41235/Quad_Critical_Minerals_Initiative_Framework_Among_India_Australia_Japan_And_The_United_States. Accessed on June 15, 2026.

[x] Abhishek Sharma, “The Case for a Quad Mineral Security Partnership”, https://www.orfonline.org/research/the-case-for-a-quad-mineral-security-partnership. Accessed on June 16, 2026.

[xi] Srivastava, “Closing the Midstream Gap in India’s Critical Minerals Strategy,” Observer Research Foundation. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/closing-the-midstream-gap-in-india-s-critical-minerals-strategy. Accessed on June 16, 2026.

[xii] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, “Chair's Statement and Outcome Document at BRICS Foreign Ministers’ Meeting”, New Delhi, 15 May 2026. https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents?dtl/41144/Chairs_Statement_and_Outcome_Document_at_BRICS_Foreign_Ministers_Meeting_May_15_2026. Accessed on June 15, 2026.

[xiii] Gracelin Baskaran and Ben Cahill, “Six New BRICS: Implications for Energy Trade”, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 25 August 2023. https://www.csis.org/analysis/six-new-brics-implications-energy-trade. Accessed on June 16, 2026.

[xiv] “Brazil and India Sign Landmark Critical Minerals and Rare Earths Agreement”, TV BRICS, 2026. https://tvbrics.com/en/news/brazil-and-india-sign-landmark-critical-minerals-and-rare-earths-agreement/. Accessed on June 15, 2026.

[xv] Government of India. “No Country Should Weaponise Critical Minerals, Technology or Supply Chains: PM Modi at BRICS”, 2026. https://newsonair.gov.in/no-country-should-weaponise-critical-minerals-technology-or-supply-chains-pm-modi-at-brics/. Accessed on June 15, 2026.