ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the respective trajectories of the denial of discursive and performative citizenship to Dalits and Indigenous Australians. It attempts to understand how the Dalit autobiographers Baby Kamble and Aravind Malagatti and the Indigenous Australian autobiographers Alice Nannup and Gordon Briscoe imagined the manner in which equal citizenship was denied to their respective peoples. It will compare how both groups were excluded from their respective societies and denied basic human rights and liberties. Finally, the chapter also questions the construction of the idea of the nation state and how it has systematically excluded Dalits and Indigenous Australians.
