What do the peasants' comments speak about their beliefs? Discuss with reference to "Night of the Scorpion"

Ezekiel uses irony to dramatize the peasant's, as well as the speaker's father's, superstition in their desperate attempts to save the speaker's mother. The speaker does not see the peasants in a positive light and instead compares them to "swarms of flies" in their desperation to help his mother (8). Their mixture of Christianity and Hinduism allows for slight confusion, as they pray to God for the mother's wellbeing yet also hope for the best in her reincarnations. The speaker highlights how futile their spiritual efforts were in helping his mother: "My mother twisted through and through / groaning on a mat" (32-33). While this perspective does reflect a slight elitism—the speaker is looking down on the peasants for believing what they believe—it also indicates the religious and cultural diversity that India holds. In this way, "Night of the Scorpion" is a quintessentially Indian poem in that it shows the meeting of worlds through a sense of community ties after a specific disastrous event.