Quora defines social injustice as "the elimination of various human rights from a broad variance of unfair treatment that creates negative outcomes for a minority, aggregate, or underserved population." It has been said that George Orwell loved to look for people and organizations to wage verbal war with, that he had a tendency to blow small issues out of proportion, but is that what he is doing in his piece, "Shooting An Elephant"? Orwell grew up in India and knew firsthand the struggles these people went through. Few people outside of India knew or cared what went on there. To Britain, India was nothing more than an untapped resource to bleed dry, and a people to extort (or to "convert" depending on whose side you believe). Orwell understood that what was going on around him was wrong, and he sought to change that.

Nineteenth and early twentieth century India is well known for its caste system. They had been living within its confines for millennia by this point, and to some degree it persists even today. While some in the lower castes weren 't necessarily happy with their lot, the caste system was and is a way of life. The British –who, during this time, experienced a similarly rigid division of classes- conquered the Indian states between 1748 and 1820, and were well established by the time Orwell was born. Once wealthy British officials moved in to run the government of the commonwealth state, they seem to have placed themselves in an unofficial caste above