The Aborigines and The Adivasis: Sharing a Common Voice; Analyzing Judith Wright’s Bora Ring and Shanmugam Chettiar’s We are the Adivasis

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze Judith Wright’s poem, “Bora Ring”, and Shanmugam Chettiar’s poem, “We are the Adivasis”, under the light of postcolonial theory. By using Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of “mimicry,” we showcase the plight of indigenous communities like the Aborigines of Australia and the Adivasis of India, communities that fail to identify with the neo-colonial ‘mimic-identity’ and culture have been thereby relegated as the ‘other’. The plight of both communities shows stark similarities, as is evident in the analysis of the poems