Female Subjugation
Deeti conducts a scenario scrutiny of her wedding night and subsequent days which hints at the possibility of her being oppressed sexually for the sake of certifying that Hukam Singh has a household: “Her suspicions deepened in the following weeks, when Hukam Singh showed no further interest in her, being usually in a state of torpid, opium-induced somnolence by the time he fell on his bed. Deeti tried a few stratagems to break him from the spell of his pipe, but all to no avail: it was pointless to withhold opium from a man who worked in the very factory where it was processed; and when she tried hiding his pipe, he quickly fashioned another. Nor did the effects of temporary deprivation make him desire her any more: on the contrary, it seemed only to make him angry and withdrawn. At length, Deeti was forced to conclude that he could never be a husband to her, in the full sense, either because his injury had rendered him incapable, or because opium had removed the inclination. But then her belly began to swell with the weight of a child and her suspicions acquired an added edge: who could have impregnated her if not her husband?”
Customarily, Deeti would have gratifying reminiscences of her wedding night, but she is undoubtedly drugged before another man other than her spouse impregnates her. Deeti’s deductions are rational considering that she cannot account for her pregnancy. Had she been conscious on her night, she would have been persuaded that her pregnancy is her husband’s. Evidently, Deeti’s matrimonial crushes as soon as it starts because her misgivings and paucity of romance deny her the bliss which is characteristic in beginning marriages. Deeti’s innocence and dreams are sacrificed to please Hukam Singh because her pregnancy is an exact creation of rape. Besides, Deeti’s meditation alludes to the injurious repercussions of opium on potency and sexual functionality which could endanger sexual connection among couples.
Commercialization of Opium
The commercialization of opium activates alterations in farming: “In the old days, farmers would keep a little of their home-made opium for their families, to be used during illnesses, or at harvests and weddings; the rest they would sell to the local nobility, or to pykari merchants from Patna. Back then, a few clumps of poppy were enough to provide for a household's needs…but what sane person would want to multiply these labours when there were better, more useful crops to grow, like wheat, dal, vegetables? But those toothsome winter crops were steadily shrinking in acreage: now the factory's appetite for opium seemed never to be sated. Come the cold weather, the English sahibs would allow little else to be planted; their agents would go from home to home, forcing cash advances on the farmers, making them sign asámi contracts. It was impossible to say no to them: if you refused they would leave their silver hidden in your house, or throw it through a window.”
The compulsion to plant more opium for the purpose of exporting is unfavorable to the propagation of sustenance crops such as “wheat, dal and vegetables.” The judiciary favors the white sahibs because it is run by whites meaning that the farmers have no other alternative other than striving in their farms to yield opium for the whites. Commissions derived from opium farming are not adequate because they are principally utilized to set off the advance outlays of the white sahibs. The farmer’s situation portrays the undesirable repercussions of economic colonization which leaves the Indians at the pity of the colonizers. They are subjugated economically to augment the whites’ ravenous craving for opium.
