Popular geopolitics of ‘nuclear India’: tracing the evolution of India’s ‘regional’ and ‘global’ identities in the English daily The Hindu from 2011–2020

ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom on India’s nuclear geopolitics takes a top-down approach, foregrounding state perceptions of India’s nuclear role in regional and global politics. This conventional approach overlooks the bottom-up processes, such as media representations, which have been fundamental in shaping India’s nuclear identity. This is because media representations comprise common-sense knowledge, since media is the primary source of information in a democracy. Building on theoretical underpinnings of popular geopolitics, this article focuses on analyses of media representations in the Editorial of the English daily The Hindu from 2011–2020. This national newspaper boasts the second-largest readership among English dailies. The direct link between The Hindu Editorial’s representations of ‘nuclear India’ and India’s ‘regional’ and ‘global’ selfhood is crucial. The concerned period of 2011–2020 was pivotal in charting Indian geopolitical identity, as India partook in international negotiations after the US-India Nuclear Deal in 2008 and became a member of multilateral export control regimes like the Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group, and Missile Technology Control Regime. This article deconstructs the Editorial texts to elicit the intertextual links underpinning the ‘geopolitical cultural signifier’, ‘geospatial mythology’, and ‘self/other’ binary representation that operationalises India’s nuclear identity in regional and global settings.


Introduction
India's trajectory as a de-facto nuclear weapon state has been contentious.While nuclear weapons have remained significant for India's foreign and security policy due to postcolonial sensitivities, regional security, global status and geopolitical issues, India's acceptance into the current Global Nuclear Order (GNO) is an anomaly.India conducted its first Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) in 1974, primarily in defiance of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).The main impact of the PNE was on US-India bilateral relations, which deteriorated considerably.After the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and India's refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, India became an overt nuclear power with five underground nuclear tests on 11 and 13 May 1998.Despite US President Bill Clinton's visit to India in March 2000, the 'nuclear factor' remained a contentious issue between the two nations, deferring normalisation of bilateral relations.However, between 2005-2008 under the George W. Bush administration, the US-India Nuclear Deal was signed, creating a niche for India as a de-facto nuclear weapon state.Though not a party to the NPT, under the agreement of the nuclear deal, India undertook similar steps to the NPT criteria for a Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) by dividing its civilian and military nuclear infrastructure and allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections only on civilian nuclear sites.Apart from that, under both the Barack Obama and Donald Trump administrations, India continued with its unique nuclear status by becoming a member of military export control regimes such as the Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) between 2016-2018.No other state has achieved these accommodations in the current NPT-led GNO, in the sense that a national state has been allowed to continue with its military and civilian nuclear programmes despite being a non-signatory to the NPT.
Current literature considers India's nuclear weapons policy, within a geopolitical dimension, as an elite venturea domain of statecraft practitioners.The fact that India did not submit under immense international pressure to give up its nuclear weapons programme during and after the end of the Cold War is very much an outcome of the governing elites' desire and outlook on post-independent India's position in global politics.Ashok Kapur (2006) notes that the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) nuclear policy under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government between the period of 1998-2004 reversed the post-independence Nehruvian nuclear policy framework of 'self-restraint' that primarily focused on regional requirements and aspirations to lead the non-aligned Third World.This paradigm shift indicated India's aspirations to be a 'world power' capable of dealing with international and regional issues.Barry Buzan (2012) traces India's nuclear capability as part of a geopolitical reconfiguration of the 'Asian supercomplex', which merges the security dynamics of East and South Asia.David Scott (2008) notes that India's nuclear and conventional military modernisation underscores an aim to encircle China geographically, wherein Sino-India relations can be categorised as a part of the 'Great Game', where both are vying for hegemony over space in Asia and beyond.While causality does provide the geographical determinants of elite strategy in the nuclear domain, it overlooks the constitutive force of media representations on which the elites depend.While other authors critically analyse India's nuclear identity and its relation to insecurity, they do not focus on the politics of popular media representations.More importantly, the critical analysis of India's nuclear identity is also restricted to analysing elite discourse.Runa Das (2010) investigates the justification of India's nuclear policies based on the construction of 'geo-strategic' insecurities that led the BJP to conduct nuclear tests and pursue a proactive nuclear weapons policy.Tanvi Pate (2018) focuses on the postcolonial spatial and temporal dimensions of Indian nuclear identity, constituting the US-India Nuclear Deal.Alexander Davis (2014) looks at India's identification with the 'Anglosphere' and the resultant international acceptance of India as a nuclear power.Karthika Sasikumar (2007) focuses on analysing the 'responsible' identity of nuclear India that facilitated its integration into the global nuclear regime.The academic literature does not consider the effect and influence of popular media representations that lead to evaluating the 'common-sensical construction' of 'nuclear India', which are integral to Indian nuclear geopolitics, a gap which this article addresses.
Joanne Sharp (1993, 493) notes: 'Geopolitics does not simply "trickle down" from elite texts to popular ones'.Instead, elites draw upon discourse already granted hegemonic social acceptance.Representations of national spatial identity in terms of India's 'spheres of influence' by the key media outlets are essential in determining the geopolitics of 'nuclear India'.Building on a theoretical prism of popular geopolitics, this article focuses on analyses of media representations between 2011 and 2020 in Editorials of the print media The Hindua national newspaper that boasts the second largest readership among English dailiesto gauge the direct link between media representations of 'nuclear India' and India's 'regional' and 'global' geopolitical identities.This period was crucial in charting Indian geopolitical identity, as India partook in international nuclear negotiations post the US-India Nuclear Deal and became a member of the multilateral export control regimes, the Wassenaar Arrangement, Australia Group and MTCR, between 2016-2018, thus solidifying its status as a de-facto NWS beyond the perimeters of the NPT.The following section evaluates the theory of popular geopolitics and the methodological outline applied to 'nuclear India's' geospatial politics.The article demonstrates that India's 'regional' and 'global' identities, negotiated around the dominant nuclear discourse of India's role in 'West Asia' vis-à-vis nuclear Iran and implications for the 'global non-proliferation regime', are derived from an understanding of 'geospatial mythologies' rooted in 'geopolitical cultural signifiers' that are entrenched in discourses of postcolonialism, non-alignment, and multilateralism.The contemporary discursive construction of nuclear India's 'global' and 'regional' geospatial selfhood, as evident in The Hindu Editorial texts, reinstates and continues with the subjectivity of a postcolonial state which was shaped by the cultural, political and economic marginalisation induced by colonialism (Chacko 2012, 11).

Linking popular geopolitics to critical geopolitics
'Geography is about power' (Tuathail 1996, 1) because 'geography' has been a central component of political orders.Competing political authorities historically have struggled for power over the organisation, occupation and administration of a space.Alternatively, Carl Schmitt (2003, 329;Antaki 2004) calls this process nomos, which is the appropriation, distribution and production of economic, social and legal orders that become relevant only when applied through the land.The imperial systems of history from Greece and Rome to China exercised power through their ability to control space.Post-Westphalian Europe started to organise space around monarchy and royal decree within and beyond the regular domain.However, Halford Mackinder's (2004) lecture on The Geographical Pivot of History in 1904 consolidated the political dimension to geography, particularly its uses for the British Empire within and beyond the 'Eurasian Heartland'.From here on, power over geography or 'geopolitics' achieved a unique connection to 'statecraft' and how geographical control was a core determinant of a 'great power' rivalry.In the interwar years, Nazi foreign policy thinkers introduced the concept of Lebensraum, which technically meant more 'living space' for the German nation.In the Cold War years, geopolitics became central to the United States and the Soviet Union's control and influence over states in different geographical regions.For Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, the superpower game of balance-of-power politics played out across the global political map (Tuathail 1998, 1).'Geopolitics' has become a central focus of the debate in post-Cold War great power relations, particularly in policy circles, popular media and academia.The 'Obama doctrine' declared American primacy vis-à-vis rising China with an invocation of the term 'US pivot to Asia', thus resurrecting the geostrategic tenets of Alfred Mahan (2005a;2005b)  1 and Mackinder (Campbell and Andrews 2013;Davidson 2014;Löfflmann 2016).It is speculated that Vladimir Putin's foreign policy follows the logic of Alexander Dugin's 2 understanding of the world order, which includes the Tellurocracies (Land Powers) versus the Thalassocracies (Sea Powers)of Eurasia versus the Atlanticists.Dugin (2000)  Consisting of 'roads', 'belts', 'corridors' and 'bridges', BRI creates spatial norms that are fundamentally different from the separation of land and sea and the parceling of territories that accompanied modern nomos.
According to the Chinese scholar Wang Hui (2015 cited in Jiwoon 2019, 270), BRI's ultimate destination is to connect China's historical civilisation with socialism, bringing to completion the 'long process of overcoming the capitalist economic system'.The geopolitical anxieties of countries like the US, Russia and China greatly influence contemporary great power competition and the resulting statecraft.
In contrast to the classical geopolitics explored above, critical geopolitics contends that only the ensemble of heterogeneous practices of geo-politics makes 'geopolitics' possible.Gearóid Ó Tuathail (1996, 48) postulates that when geo-politics is permanently hyphenated, it means that 'geopolitics' encompasses distinct and unstable historical condensations of multifarious activities.'Critical geopolitics bears witness to the irredeemable plurality of space and the multiplicity of possible political constructions of space' (Tuathail and Dalby 1998, 3).Accordingly, if 'geopolitics' is a decentred set of practices, then it is not restricted to the specialised knowledge used by the practitioners of the statecraft only.Instead, it engenders different facets of geo-politics, interconnected at various sites to delimit identity, security and danger constructions.Tuathail and Dalby (1998, 4) identify these interconnected sites of geo-politics as practical geopolitics of the state leaders, formal geopolitics of the strategic community and intellectuals, and popular geopolitics found within the artefacts of transnational popular culture such as mass media, magazines and movies.Tuathail and Dalby (1998, 5) thus note: Critical geopolitics is a form of geopolitics but one that seeks to disturb the objectivist perspectivism found in the history of geopolitics and in the practices of foreign policy more generally.It is a 'situated knowledge' that intervenes to disturb the 'god trick' of traditional geopolitics, which claimed to represent effortlessly the drama of international politics as an intelligible spectacle without interpretation.This conceit, while certainly not particular to the geopolitical tradition, is a consistent feature of geopolitical texts from Mackinder to Kissinger and from Bowman to Brzezinski.
The purpose of critical geopolitics is to analyse multifaceted constructions of spatialisation and how they manifest themselves across the landscape of states in political, social and physical geographical understandings, which in turn frame and incite specific conceptual, moral and aesthetic interpretations of 'self' and 'other', security and dangers, proximity and distance, indifference and responsibility.Critical geopolitics questions how 'geography' and 'geopolitics' as signs have been put to work in global politics, for these 'signs marks the site of space/power/knowledge production systems, operations that script actors, settings, and dramas of global politics in deeply geo-politicized ways' (Tuathail 1996, 52).There are no objective spatial forms that exist on an 'atheoretical' basis.Instead, these geographical descriptors are created and recreated.In other words, geography is not an independent variable but is bound by discourses of history, politics and ideology (Sharp 1993, 492).
Through problematisation of the 'modernist' meaning of space in the Cartesian conceptualisation, wherein a social life is played out, critical geopolitics emphasises the historical specificity of space that focuses on its constructed nature, making geopolitics 'discursive'.Geography hence becomes a technique of governmentality that permeates society through 'regimes of truth '. Here, Michel Foucault's (1979;1982) concept of 'power' becomes essential in a socially demarcated space.Strategies of power constituted through accepted forms of knowledge work through discourses that constantly redefine the 'accepted' truth.Similarly, critical geopolitics also works on the premise of Jacques Derrida's (1976;1982) challenge to logocentrism.In contrast to the Western dependence of thought, discourse or meaning on a metaphysical authority (Logos), considered external and whose truth and validity can be considered unproblematic, Derrida asserts the irreducible textuality of all concepts and terms.Terms and concepts on their own do not mean anything.Instead, all concepts are produced within a discursive network of difference and depend upon these networks of difference for their identity.'Geopolitics, for example, is conditioned by the predicates "geography" and "politics" which themselves are delimited and conditioned by other predicates in unstable and indeterminate ways' (Tuathail 1996, 50).'Each concept is part of a conceptual binary opposition in which each term is believed to be exterior to the other.Yet the interval that separates each from its opposite and from what it is not also makes each concept what it is.A concept is thus constituted by an interval, by its difference from another concept' (Tuathail 1996, 50-51).Geopolitics, therefore, 'cannot be abstracted from the textuality of its use' (Ibid).'Geopolitics can only be studied in terms of its embeddedness in the (general) text' (Ibid).
Deconstructionists do not assume that geopolitical traditions have self-evident and self-present identities.Deconstructionists ask how 'geopolitics' and the 'geopolitical tradition' have been textualised with certain meanings at various times and in various contexts.For example, how has 'geopolitics' been incited in differing networks of power/knowledge?How has its use differed in different times and places?Critical geopolitics should strive to address the problematic of geopolitics, which is the general problematic of scripting global space by state-society intellectuals and institutions.Geopolitics with a permanent hyphen, as mentioned above, marks an unstable and an indeterminate problematic.'Geo-politics is other of geopolitics; it is the unnamed logocentric practices that make it possible' (Ibid: 52).Critical geopolitics thus problematises the logocentric infrastructures that make 'geopolitics' or any spatialisation of the global political scene possible.Critical geopolitics adopts a postmodernist understanding to assert the irreducible textuality of 'geography' and 'geopolitics'.
Critical geopolitics' acknowledgement of the plurality of sites of production of geographical space (s) and its constructedness in specific context(s) makes 'popular geopolitics' an innate and inextricable site of the state's geopolitical practice.Formal geopolitical texts rely on popular texts because media texts have been granted hegemonic social acceptance.Media is generally perceived as providing knowledge of the world.However, media is not a part of the state's monolith structure in a 'topdown' manner, nor does it simply adhere to a 'bottom-up' mass understanding.Sharp (1993, 493) argues that instead, media texts should be regarded 'as a part of a Gramscian hegemonywhich explains, legitimates and at times challenges the dominant understanding by pulling it through the lens of popular discourses'.The scripting of national geopolitics of elites cannot be removed or isolated from the process of social reproduction of knowledge and is part of the conceptual apparatus that has already been identified in the form of commonly accepted truisms that Sharp (Ibid: 494) terms as 'common sense', which she explains in the following manner: In examining the constitution of America's 'common sense' understanding, Sharp (1993, 494-495) focuses on the American 'mythology' that structured the knowledge of America in a particular historical period of the 'second cold war', which she identifies between 1980-1990.Mythologies of the state define its historical and future roles, and America's mythologies specifically depend on American mission and destiny in the modern world from which the geopoliticians draw upon.Mythologies impose a narrative closure in reference to commonly accepted truisms.Information is presented through a conceptual apparatus which has acquired social existence.As opposed to mythologies existing independently, this paper adopts an understanding of 'geospatial mythologies' embedded within a 'geopolitical culture'.Geographical framings and ideas associated with power, danger and identity are embedded within geopolitical cultures, as Tuathail (2006) (cited in Dittmer and Dodds 2008, 444) notes: Geopolitical culture emerges from a state's encounter with the world.It is conditioned by a series of factors: a state's geographic position, historical formation, and bureaucratic organization, discourses of national identity and traditions of theorizing its relationship to the wider world, and the networks that operate within the state.
From this understanding, it can be deduced that the American mythology of mission and destiny in the 1980s was cultivated from the longer historical geographical traditions that have had a profound impact on shaping discourses and representations of national identity.American 'geopolitical culture' was shaped by the anti-colonial revolt against the British in the eighteenth century.The revolt gave birth to the concept of a 'New World' separated from Europe and Asia by large bodies of water, and this shaped the geospatial underpinnings of the mythology of America's mission and destiny during the 'second cold war' (Ellis 2007;Louis 1985).
When popular geopolitics is considered part of 'geopolitical culture', state geopolitics can be comprehended as 'saturated' and 'leaked' beyond the formal sphere of the government (Dittmer and Dodds 2008, 441-444).The association of political values with particular state identity that domesticate the 'inside' and the 'outside' via crafting of 'geospatial mythology' can be understood as embedded in a 'geopolitical culture' permeating popular media texts; geopolitics is about selecting elements of socially negotiated truth rather than creating events from scratch.Geospatial mythology offers a specific spatially defined narrative closure in a particular historical period by utilising truisms that act as geopolitical culture signifiers.The following section identifies the methodology of textual selection and criteria within an Indian nuclear context and domestic popular media in the recent historical period of 2011-2020.

Text selection and methodology
This paper adopts 'intertextuality' as its methodological approach.Intertextuality underscores an understanding that 'texts' are not self-contained systems but differential and historical, shaped by the repetition and transformation of other textual structures.The theory of intertextuality insists that a text 'cannot exist as a hermetic or self-sufficient whole, and so does not function as a closed system' (Worton and Still 1990 cited in Raj 2015, 77).In 'The Bounded Text', Julia Kristeva observes that authors compile new discourse from already existing texts.This explains text as a 'permutation of texts, an intertextuality', where 'several utterances, taken from other texts intersect and neutralize one another' (Kristeva 1980, 36 cited in Ibid: 78;Alfaro 1996).Texts are not isolated but culturally fashioned discourses, ways of systemic/institutional 'speaking and saying' (Ibid).In this sense, a text communicates with a frontal and synchronic literary corpus.Kristeva explains this dialogic process within a text as: 'Horizontal axis (subject-addressee) and vertical axis (text-context) coincide, bringing to light an important fact: each word (text) is an intersection of word (texts) where at least one other word (text) can be read' (Kristeva 1980, 66 cited in Ibid).The emphasis on the relational nature of the texts makes intertextuality central to deconstruction.Derrida notes that language is a system that is created by negative signifiers put together.When the negatives are put together, a positive is created because of its relationship to something that it is not, from which it differs, and which itself cannot be present (Derrida 1982, 13 cited in Hendricks 2016, 5).Différance enables meaning.For 'then meaning is present, and presence itself can mean what it meant for Western metaphysics, only as an effect of "différance", the continual deference of meaning' (Ibid).This language construction determines the construction of meaning and representation of reality.Hence, 'there is nothing outside the text or nothing outside context' (Ibid).Thus, intertextuality attains a significant importance in critical geopolitics since the politics of spatialisation of geography attains a dimension of irreducible textuality.While 'geopolitical cultural signifiers' can be defined as an institutional literary corpus, the geopolitical discourse through which 'geospatial mythologies' are crafted can be subjected to intertextual reference, which attains meaning only through binary lexicons of difference in identity as created through 'self/other' oppositions to elicit the process of geo-politics.
Accordingly, this paper applies intertextuality to analyse the popular media geopolitics of India.In the past decade, digital media outlets have increased and have reworked India's media sphere, subsequently impacting the distribution of print newspapers that are being widely accessed online.The newspaper selected for analysis is The Hindu.The Hindu, launched in 1878, is ranked the second most circulated English language newspaper in India, after The Times of India (Mishra 2019).With its prestigious 'independent editorial stand', The Hindu prides itself in presenting a reliable and balanced view of Indian politics (The Hindu 2020a).As a result, the newspaper has a wide readership of students and professionals and considerably impacts Indian national political discourse (Creative Thinks Media 2020).Thus, it is unsurprising that several The Hindu journalists have been a target of the Pegasus snooping scandal, wherein the ruling BJP government has been accused (The Hindu 2021).This paper focuses on the Editorial of The Hindu.Since the Editorial is considered the impartial voice of the newspaper, this article finds it an influential mode of producing a 'common sense' appeal of the 'geospatial mythology' of 'nuclear India' that constitutes its 'regional' and 'global' identities.The Editorial will be subjected to deconstruction through which the intertextuality of the texts will be traced to ascertain India's 'geopolitical cultural signifiers'.The historical period under examination, in which the understanding of 'nuclear India' was constituted through geospatial mythology, is 2011-2020.In this period, India partook in international nuclear negotiations and became a member of multilateral arms control regimes.
The following sections deconstruct The Hindu Editorial published during this period to discover the Indian 'geospatial mythology' as derived from 'geopolitical cultural signifiers' and the main lexicons of binary identity representations that create the Indian 'self' and 'other(s)', which are the basis of a popular geopolitics discourse.The focus will remain on the deconstruction of the dominant nuclear geopolitical discourse with the largest number of Editorials -Iran's nuclear policy: West Asia.

Discussion: The Hindu Editorial 2011-2020
Table 1 shows the nuclear discursive structure, the concurrent framings of the subject matter, and the number of times these have been discussed in The Hindu Editorial between 2011 and 2020.
The second major geopolitical discourse focuses on the Korean Peninsula nuclear puzzle.The North Korean nuclear crisis's 'regional' and 'international' implications are central to this geopolitical framework (The Hindu 2011a).The citation of this discourse as the second most addressed category signifies a shift in Indian concerns beyond the subcontinental nuclear 'South Asia' and towards the international realm.The 'geospatial mythology' predominantly considers the deteriorating nuclear situation in the 'East Asia region', the 'South China Sea', the 'Yellow Sea' and the 'Pacific' (The Hindu 2013a; 2016a; 2016b; 2016c).The Editorial was critical of the goal of 'denuclearisation' of the Korean Peninsula, terming it a 'chimera'.Instead, the Editorial calls upon the 'big powers' - China, the US and Russia to engage diplomatically with the North Korean dictatorship alongside the sanctions policy (The Hindu 2017a).China was cited as a country with a 'historic responsibility' to solve the North Korean problem, particularly if it wants to assume a more 'proactive regional leadership'.Parallels are drawn between Russia's successful efforts to bring about the Iran nuclear deal and China's responsibility to adopt a similar trajectory vis-à-vis North Korea (The Hindu 2015a; 2016a; 2018a).The Editorial was critical of counter-provocations by the US that include the annual United States-South Korean naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, the flying of B-52 stealth bombers over the Korean Peninsula, the placing of missile interceptors in the island of Guam, and the agreement to place anti-ballistic missile system Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) in South Korea (The Hindu 2013a; 2016d; 2017b).Although North Korea's decisions to conduct nuclear tests and missile launches are described as 'sinister', 'paranoid' and 'reckless', it was claimed there is a 'method to Pyongyang's madness' (The Hindu 2016a; 2017c).According to the Editorial, the Kim Jong-un regime adopts nuclear escalation during every US presidential election to garner US attention.Thus, the Editorial notes that a 'sustainable approach' would be to reintroduce the diplomatic mechanism of the 'Six Party Talks' (that got derailed during Obama's first term), treating North Korea as a 'rational actor' even if the regime's actions may seem 'erratic' (The Hindu 2016c; 2017c).'Multilateralism' could lower tensions in the Korean Peninsula (The Hindu 2017d; 2018b).The geospatial focus on the nuclear 'Korean Peninsula' and the 'East Asia region' confirms India's rising ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region.As Darshana Baruah (2020, 3) notes, India's approach towards the Indo-Pacific 'is shaped by a new strategic environment coinciding with the rise of China, particularly in the Indian Ocean region and South Asia'.The geopolitical discourse of the nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula underlines geospatial mythology for 'nuclear India' transitioning to a 'global power' from a 'regional power'.The India-Pakistan bilateral nuclear relations comprise the third most prominent geopolitical discourse, underscoring a 'geospatial mythology' of nuclear India's 'regional' role in 'South Asia'.Textual tropes, such as Pakistan's 'continuing support for Islamist terrorist outfits', criticisms of 'Jammu and Kashmir as a nuclear flashpoint', 'nuclear shadow over the subcontinent', India-Pakistan in the 'South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)', and Pakistan's strategic importance for the US 'South Asia' policy which spells a 'composite approach involving India, Pakistan and Afghanistan', China and Pakistan's plan for BRI 'implies a significant mutation in the regional balance of power in South Asia and Afghanistan', recreate India's strategic presence in its backyard (The Hindu 2011b;2015b;2015c;2016e;2019a;2019b;2020b).The Hindu Editorial's India-Pakistan nuclear framing, therefore, adheres to the 'regional' and 'subcontinental' geopolitical identity of 'India' in 'South Asia' as implied in the regional connotations of India-Pakistan bilateral rivalry that can be traced back to the hegemonic narrative of their differing perceptions of geopolitical claims concerning an independent postcolonial statehood (Leake and Haines 2017).
Nevertheless, the dominant citations of India's role in 'West Asia' vis-à-vis the Iranian nuclear issue and India's approach towards the nuclear 'Korean Peninsula' considered above indicate a shift in the geopolitical focus beyond the regional confines of 'India' in 'South Asia'.India's foreign policy towards these regions has a global focus with resulting global implications, thus charting India's 'global' nuclear identity, which sees India's eventual progression as a recognised 'responsible' global nuclear power (Sasikumar 2007).The next section considers the dominant geopolitical discourse, demonstrating the main article topics which craft a unique 'nuclear India' regional and global 'self'.

Discussion: deconstructing India's representation of Iran's nuclear posture in West Asia
Table 2 situates the Editorial's scrutiny of India's approach towards nuclear Iran into four main article topics.Different geopolitical elements govern each topic.These can be located into 'geopolitical cultural signifiers' through which the 'geospatial mythologies' are derived.Furthermore, these 'geospatial mythologies' are negotiated at 'regional' and 'global' levels, which are dependent on binary representations of identity in 'gender', 'economy', 'democracy' and 'culture'.The article topics are subsequently demarcated into temporal progress or regress stages based on India's approach towards West Asia.The figures in brackets demonstrate the number of times corresponding tropes have been mentioned.The first geopolitical discourse concerns US/Western sanctions on Iran.The 'geospatial mythologies' of this discourse focus on both 'regional' and 'global' dimensions, emphasising the region of 'West Asia' and 'global non-proliferation' goals.Both indicate a closure for India's past and future roles as the mythologies explicitly adhere to Indian foreign policy in the 'extended neighbourhood' -West Asia and North Africa region (WANA), which establishes India's identity beyond the confines of 'South Asia' as a regional power in contemporary international politics (MEA, WANA Division, 2020), and the harmful effects of US sanctions policy on the global non-proliferation regime that ascertains India's role as a 'responsible' global nuclear power.The enhanced inspections in return for easing sanctions, as proposed by the ex-head of IAEA, Mohammed el-Baradei, are considered a logical outcome to curtail further uranium enrichment by Iran (The Hindu 2013b).The identity markers evaluate the easing of sanctions under the Obama administration, in line with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as a 'pragmatic' outlook achieved under his (Obama's) 'able guidance' and only as a result of the 'visionary determination' of both Obama and Hassan Rouhani (The Hindu 2015d; 2016f; 2016g).The masculine characteristics are especially contrasted to the feminisation of the US 'other' as the Trump administration's withdrawal from JCPOA was termed a 'reckless act' based on 'unrealistic' expectations, similar to the pre-JCPOA US sanctions policy, which was described as 'irresponsible' and 'curmudgeonly' (The Hindu 2020c;2015e;2012a;2013c).Iran as the 'other' was also the central focus of this discourse, as sanctions affecting its impoverished economy are regularly cited by the Editorial, thus contrasting it to India, which is judged to be the fastest developing economy in the world.The ability of Iran to further democratise under the regime of centrist Rouhani is noted as an incentive to remove sanctions (The Hindu 2018c).The cultural identity marker of the 'Shia-Sunni' divide in the region, which can intensify further due to US sanctions, thereby becoming detrimental to the 'Islamic regime' of Iran, creates a difference from the predominantly Hindu civilisational identity of India in Asia (The Hindu 2015f; 2020d).Overall comprehension of this discourse can only be gauged when situated within the 'geopolitical cultural signifier' that emphasises the importance of 'multilateralism' and 'global community' in a postcolonial world.The postcolonial identity of India seeps through, because the P5 + 1 multilateralism was postulated to be the ideal response to current global political realities, resulting in positive global developments.In contrast, the US withdrawal from JCPOA was explicitly linked to the politics of 'exceptionalism' and 'unilateralism' that do not serve the current multilateral and multipolar world order requirements, resulting in harmful outcomes (The Hindu 2017e; 2020e).As India expert Ian Hall (2021) observes, India has long sought a multipolar order.The critical strands of this multipolar outlook have evolved since Indian nationalists began to think about the possible foreign policies of postcolonial India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The emergence of a more confident narrative about multipolarity in India since the early 2000s has shaped India's approaches to security and extended its interests and preferences in contemporary international relations.
The second geopolitical discourse focuses on the US-Israel-Saudi Arabia-Iran dynamics.The emphasis was on Trump's unilateral withdrawal from 'multilateral diplomacy'/JCPOA as detrimental to the 'rule-based international order', making the region of 'West Asia' all the more 'chaotic' (The Hindu 2018d; 2017f).In this context, India's 'global' and 'regional' concerns are given equal importance in respective 'geospatial mythologies'.In gender terms, the Trump administration's policy was deemed irrational, as it was explicitly contrasted to Obama's 'political realism', 'far-sightedness' and 'pragmatism', underscoring masculine rationalism (The Hindu 2017f; 2017g).The feminine traits of the Trump administration's sanctions policy are further accredited to Israel's ability to 'manipulate' the US and the EU.Therefore, the Editorial advises Joe Biden to 'reassert' himself and 'rein' in his West Asian allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel (The Hindu 2012b; 2020f).Israeli cultural identity was contrasted to Iran via an emphasis on 'Zionism' and the politics of 'occupied territories' of Palestine (The Hindu 2012b).Saudi Arabia was represented within the framework of 'Arab countries' in West Asia, whereas Iran was termed an 'Islamic Republic' (The Hindu 2013d;2014).The Editorial postulates whereas the Obama administration's policy sought to include Iran as a 'responsible' player to reduce the Shia-Sunni hostility in the region, the Trump administration's policy was crafted to favour Israeli and Saudi strategic interests (The Hindu 2016h; 2017f).The Hindu Editorial's anti-Israel stance draws from India's postcolonial identity, which had an unfavourable view of the Israeli state and initially cooperated with the Arab League in the post-independence years.India-Israel bilateral relations were normalised only in 1992 with the end of the Cold War (Pate 2020).In economic terms, the Editorial notes that the sanctions were designed to keep the Iranian economy from re-integrating into the mainstream global economy and keeping it poor.Furthermore, the democratic legitimacy of Iran was contrasted with the lack of democratic reforms in wider West Asia, pointing towards the lack of political rights in a region mainly governed by authoritarian leaders (The Hindu 2018d; 2013d).The geospatial mythologies of 'multilateral diplomacy'/JCPOA and 'chaotic West Asia' and their attendant binary representations were located in the 'geopolitical cultural signifier' of the 'international community' role in pushing for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis.This was starkly contrasted with American 'unilateralism', which would be detrimental to global non-proliferation aims (The Hindu 2020d; 2017h).The emphasis on a multilateral solution re-inscribed India's postcolonial identity.
The third geopolitical discourse emphasised Iranian legitimacy as a governance system.The representation of the Iranian 'other' as a thriving reform-oriented nation-state delegitimises US sanctions policy and sets Iran apart as a political set-up which is democratic in the otherwise tensionladen geopolitical landscape of West Asia.As an incentive to facilitate 'managed pluralism' in Iran, the Editorial encouraged the lifting of nuclear sanctions and enactment of 'pervasive engagement' (The Hindu 2013e).This postulates ending Iranian isolation and reintegration into the global nuclear order and the global economy.The 'geopolitical cultural signifier' P5 + 1 multilateralism/'six world powers' and their successful culmination of the historical nuclear deal marked a closure for India's faith in global nuclear diplomacy guided by multipolarity rather than unipolarity (The Hindu 2017i).The Trump administration's policy was described as a breakdown of 'détente' between the US and Iran that utilised tropes from the repertoire of détente between the US-Soviet Union during the Cold War (The Hindu 2019c).The Editorial was critical of the Western/US sanctions, which inevitably encouraged the emergence of hardliners in Iran, supported by the clerics led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and populist leaders such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.An end to Iran's nuclear isolation and its ability to reintegrate into the global economy provides more significant opportunities for the moderates/reformists within the Iranian governance structure as guided by Rouhani.The moderates seek to implement a 'reform agenda' both in the economic and democratic realms of Iran, thereby allowing Iran to engage with the global economy as well as work on democratic freedoms incrementally (The Hindu 2016i).In a cultural sense, Iran's transformation from 'rigid Islamist theocracy' to 'religious democracy' is considered an optimal outcome for US-Iran and India-Iran relations (Ibid).Nevertheless, the continuation of US nonnuclear sanctions and the eventual withdrawal of the Trump administration from the multilateral nuclear deal is considered a setback for the moderates/reformists movement in Iran.The Editorial notes that the Trump administration's hardened stance 'vindicated' hardliners in Iran who oppose any rapprochement with the West, leading to the emergence of another hardline leader, Ebrahim Raisi, in opposition.Consequently, the Editorial implored Rouhani to act with political 'guile', 'boldly' with 'pragmatism' and 'realism' to steer elections in Iran in his favour as well as work on re-implementation of the stalled nuclear deal (The Hindu 2017j;2017k;2017i).A couple of Editorials were critical of the lack of democratic reforms and urged Iran to implement genuine 'representative democracy' (The Hindu 2012c;2017l;2019c).This solidifies the representation of the Indian democratic 'self' as a thriving (and the largest) democracy, reaffirming India's identity as a 'responsible' global power (Khilani 2012).The 'geospatial mythologies' present a spatial closure of Sunni states in 'the Gulf', united against the Shia-majority Iran and its continuing isolation in the region of 'West Asia', ultimately leading to setbacks for the 'global non-proliferation regime' (The Hindu 2017j;2019c;2017l).
The fourth geopolitical discourse concerns India's strategy towards Iran.It is imperative to note that the spatial and temporal identity is rooted in the 'geopolitical cultural signifier' of India's preference for 'equitable global governance' through the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the importance of P5 + 1 multilateralism as a preferable mechanism to address the Iranian nuclear issue.More importantly, India's bid for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and India's active involvement in West Asia are projected to be interlinked (The Hindu 2016l).In essence, the Editorial establishes an inextricable link between India's 'regional power' ambitions in West Asia and its desire to achieve 'global power' status through a permanent seat with a veto in the UNSC.The Editorial (The Hindu 2016j) thus notes that 'Tehran is a destination for global powers and India needs to maintain an even keel'.The geopolitical cultural signifier of NAM, with its roots in India's non-aligned stance amid bipolar alliance politics during the Cold War, remains the primary focus of the Editorial regarding India's foreign policy choices vis-à-vis Iran.Various terms such as India's policy to be guided by its own 'national interest', 'appeasement' of Washington not an option, and India's 'strategic autonomy' were invoked as the main factors guiding India's strategic interests towards Iran (The Hindu 2012d; 2011c; 2018e).'Strategic autonomy' is a post-Cold War term and a successor of NAM.The meaning is the same as India seeks to maintain its interests in the international realm without partaking in alliance politics (Tellis 2021).The successive Indian governments' decisions since 2011 to slash oil imports and curtail economic ties with Iran under US pressure were described by the Editorial in feminine terms such as 'tame', 'meek' and 'passive' attitudes in opposition to the masculine US 'aggression' (The Hindu 2011c; 2012e).In contrast, post-JCPOA agreements and normalisation of relations between India and Iran were termed 'tough', thereby re-inscribing India's masculinity (The Hindu 2018f).The Editorial considers India's economic relations with Iran unnegotiable, mainly because of India's economic and energy dependence on Iran.Thus, sanctions on Iran, both nuclear and non-nuclear, are considered detrimental to India's economic development and energy security due to reduced oil imports, slashed from 21.2 million tonnes in 2009-2010 to 13.2 million tonnes in 2012-2013.
Furthermore, the development of the Chabahar port project was considered crucial for India's access to the 'Central Asian region'.The Chabahar port in the Gulf of Oman is a port and rail link India seeks to develop to gain access to Afghanistan, bypassing 'the China-Pakistan arc'.Termed a 'golden gateway' to Central Asia by the Modi government, this $500 million project is crucial for India's economic and strategic development and presence in the region (The Hindu 2013f;2018f;2016j;2015g).The Hindu Editorial criticised this project's slow development pace in the context of the Western sanctions policy.The lifting of the nuclear sanctions through JCPOA was thus welcomed as it would allow India to alter the map of 'South and Central Asia' by engaging with the 'three poles' in the region -Gulf Sunni states, Shia Iran and Israel, in what was termed as restoring the 'equilibrium' in Indian foreign policy that was heavily skewed towards Israel and Saudi Arabia in 'Central Asia' (The Hindu 2016k).In cultural terms, the lifting of sanctions is considered a welcome feature for the 'Islamic Republic' that could finally escape the tag of 'untouchability' given by the West.The term 'untouchability' alludes to caste barriers in India, wherein the Editorial compares the Iranian exclusion from the international order to the exclusion of lower caste from the Indian societal set-up.However, this negative aspect of India was redeemed by emphasising Rouhani's characterisation of India as a 'museum of religious diversity' (The Hindu 2015g; 2018f).Overall, the 'geospatial mythology' focused on the West Asian region as crucial for India's 'global' and 'regional' role.Hence, India cannot remain a mute spectator when confronted with US diktats, especially the Trump administration's withdrawal from JCPOA and imposition of sanctions (The Hindu 2019d).The West Asia region is too important for India's strategic stability.A conflict over Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the area can lead to setbacks for the global non-proliferation regime and upset India's global and regional ambitions.
In temporal and spatial demarcations of India's 'global' and 'regional' role via nuclear politics in Iran, the Editorial postulates regression due to India's attempts at appeasing the US.India's regional and global ambitions in West Asia require a proactive engagement with Iran in a bilateral manner that does not adhere to unipolar mechanisms, but is rather situated within a multilateral negotiation process.The Editorial favoured JCPOA and was against the imposition of Western/US sanctions.The 'geospatial mythologies' about adverse effects on the 'global non-proliferation regime' and India's interests in the 'WANA region' provide a space for India to enact its 'global' nuclear self and 'regional' nuclear self, thus re-scripting India's role as a 'responsible' global nuclear power.

Conclusion
This article analyses the popular geopolitics of 'nuclear India' by examining The Hindu Editorial from 2011-2020.The main aim of this article is to ascertain the 'regional' and 'global' identities of India via popular nuclear geopolitics in the post-2008 period, after the signing of the US-India Nuclear Deal and India's entry into global arms control regimes.The article argues that the national nuclear identity of India is not only generated in elite discourse, crafted and created by the ruling government(s)/ statecraft practitioners.Instead, these government(s)/statecraft practitioners' foreign policy scripts draw from the hegemonic discourse, which comprises common-sense knowledge already available in popular media.To prove this, the article adopts the method of textual deconstruction to locate 'geopolitical cultural signifier', 'geospatial mythology', and binary 'self/other' identity representations in The Hindu Editorial.The analysis of the nuclear discourse of the Editorial indicates a shift in 'regional' and 'global' focus in terms of India's engagement with Iran's nuclear predicament in the region of 'West Asia'.The geospatial mythologies script India's role in its 'extended neighbourhood'the WANA regionand repercussions for the 'global non-proliferation regime'.Both regional and global geospatial mythologies draw on binary identity representations in 'gender', 'economy', 'democracy', and 'culture'.The Indian 'self' is scripted through these identities as a tough, fast (the fastest) developing economy, the largest democracy, and a museum of religious diversity.More importantly, geospatial mythologies and their attendant binary identity inscriptions are demonstrated as rooted in geopolitical cultural signifiers of India's postcolonial selfhood and preference for multilateralism, as evident through NAM during the Cold War period and 'strategic autonomy' in the post-Cold War period.Both the 'regional' and 'global' Indian 'self' were solidified through this dominant nuclear geopolitical discourse.India's strategic role in the West Asian region and globally as a rightful contender for a permanent UN Security Council seat with a veto has been reinforced.India's identity as a 'responsible' global nuclear power can hence be ascertained through intertextual scrutiny of popular media scripts of The Hindu Editorial.

Table 2 .
India and its approach towards the Iranian nuclear posture.