What does Orwell say about imperialism in his essay "Shooting an Elephant".

George Orwell in his essay, "Shooting an Elephant", expresses his bitter experience as a sub-divisional police officer in Burma under the British authority. He perceived there an extremely hostile view of the native against the English people whom they regard as 'oppressors'.

                Though Orwell was an officer under the British, he had much hatred for them and sympathy for the native people: "I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors,the Brirish." He describes 'imperialism' as 'an evil thing'. He disapproved fully the oppressive measures of the British rulers to sustain their imperialistic policy and interests. As a British officee, he knew very clearly how the natives were tormented as he says, "In a job like that you see the dirty work of the Empire at close quarters."

             "The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of lock ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos" - all these oppressed our author with "an intolerable sense of guilt".

               Actually Orwell realized how dreadful and inhuman was the machinary of British imperialism. To him, that imperialism appeared horrible, tyrannical, and monstrous.