What is the thesis of George Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant"?

anjames1989,

Orwell's widely
anthologized non-fiction essay "Shooting an Elephant" has an implied thesis:
“Imperialistic rulers must behave so as not to lose face or power over the populace,
even if it means doing something against their better
judgment.”

Orwell felt pressured by the people, almost
overwhelmed by their power over him through their mere presence. In theory, he explains
at the start of the selection, he “was all for the Burmese and all against their
oppressors, the British” (2). But, in reality, Orwell says, he felt the common people of
the country were “evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible”
(2).

During the shooting incident the people were “happy
and excited,” and they watched him “as they would a conjurer about to perform a trick.”
He resentfully saw himself as having to spend his life “trying to impress the ‘natives’”
(7). He reports later that, as he fired a shot, the crowd emitted a “devilish roar of
glee” (11). His choice of words shows that he resented and disliked the
Burmese.

Orwell shoots the elephant because the two
thousand native people standing behind him expect him to. They want vengeance for the
man it killed, the meat the carcass will provide, and the entertainment of watching the
shooting. “The people expected it of me and I had got to do it” (7), he writes. There is
an implication that if he decided not to shoot the elephant, both he and the British
empire would suffer a loss of prestige, but the main concern in Orwell’s mind is the
“long struggle not to be laughed at” (7). He is even afraid to “test” the animal’s mood
by going closer for fear it might attack and kill him before he could shoot, thus giving
the crowd a sight it would enjoy as much as the slaughter of the
beast.

Despotic governments result from the need to
maintain power over subtly resistant people. Such a government can rule only by
fulfilling the people’s expectations and responding to every crisis with the expected
force. Orwell points to the irony that he stood armed in front of an unarmed crowd, yet
he was powerless to do as he wished or as his judgment told him. Instead, he felt
himself “an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind”
(7).