Shooting an Elephant

George Orwell [1903-1950]

We had an anthology of classical essays as part of our undergrad English course. Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell was one of the essays. The horror of political hegemony is the core theme of the essay.

Orwell was a subdivisional police officer of the British Empire in Burma (today Myanmar) when he was forced to shoot an elephant. The elephant had gone musth (an Urdu term for the temporary insanity of male elephants when they are in need of a female) and Orwell was asked to control the commotion created by the giant creature. By the time Orwell reached with his gun, the elephant had become normal. Yet Orwell shot it. The first bullet stunned the animal, the second made him waver, and Orwell had to empty the entire magazine into the elephant’s body in order to put an end to its mammoth suffering.

“He was dying,” writes Orwell, “very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further…. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die” [emphasis added].

Orwell employs this tragic experience of his to examine the nature of political hegemony. “I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool,” his essay concludes. Political domination is often as hollow as that. Certain leaders do certain things merely to avoid looking like a fool.

When a man turns a dictator, it is his own freedom that he destroys. That is one of the arguments in the essay. The authoritarian leader rouses up all sorts of expectations in his followers and then he has to do things against his own conscience and convictions in order to fulfil popular expectations. Power, when it exceeds certain limits, has to pay a moral cost.

Orwell was against imperialism, but he had to act as its enforcer because of his job. He kills the elephant not because it is right but because the huge crowd around him expected it. The killing was going to be their entertainment. And then the elephant was going to be their food. Orwell killed the “beast” merely out of the tyranny of conformity.

Orwell’s experience happened a century back. But the core message of his essay is still relevant.

Orwell’s crowd represents collective expectation. It was a faceless force demanding conformity. The majoritarian sentiment in India today often behaves just like that Burmese crowd portrayed by Orwell. It imagines itself – with all the support of the government – as the custodians of the country’s culture, morality, and even gods. And then it makes demands on the authority. And the authority does things merely to win the applause of the crowd. What is right is disregarded; what is popular is performed.

The British Empire, though seemingly powerful, was internally weak, sustained by fear and pretence. How many authoritarian governments today behave in the same way? They display strength through control – over media, education, and political discourse. Orwell would say that it betrays deep insecurity. Like Orwell’s empire, some of our present governments, which claim to be democratic, hide moral uncertainty and fear of dissent beneath loud displays of patriotism and religious pride.

Authoritarianism of any kind is a threat to many human values and ideals. The supposed Master ends up as a slave of public expectations. The people are already mere slaves. Authoritarianism, Orwell suggests, corrupts both the Master and the citizens: the moral integrity of both.

PS. This post is a part of ‘Real and Rhythm Blog Hop’ hosted by Manali Desai and Sukaina Majeed under #EveryConversationMatters blog hop series.