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The rather obscure premises of the Tripureshwor Mahadev Temple on the banks of the Bagmati River at Tripureshwor has been home to the Music Museum of Nepal for the past eight years. The ancient brick-and-mortar building being run by the guthi in the temple courtyard is almost in ruins after the 2015 earthquake. The main temple is also being recon­structed at the moment and the two-storey historic hous­es that host the museum of Nepali folk instruments is in a shambles. A creaky wooden staircase leads to the second floor of the dilapidated house where a collection of endangered, rare and extinct Nepali folk instruments are displayed, attached to the walls and in wooded cabinets. In the dim light one can witness the rich cultural diversity in music of the country from these instruments that are hundreds of years old. The museum now boasts of the largest and most com­prehensive collection of traditional folk instruments collected over 23 years, from the high Himalayas to the Tarai plains.

“But it could all be lost,” says Ram Prasad Kandel, the founder and curator of the museum who in 1995 started the long process of collecting and saving the music instruments. “It could be a matter of weeks before we pack all these invaluable pieces of history into a box and shut down.” The Music Museum of Nepal, previously known as the Nepali Folk Musical Instru­ment Museum, has gotten a notice to vacate its premises and without any support from the government or the private sector, the non-profit institution has no option but to shut its doors—perhaps forever.

“But I will not stop my research and will continue collecting and archiving Nepali instruments,” says Kandel, who is now in the UK to raise funds and prepare for the Eighth International Folk Music Fes­tival the museum organizes annual­ly, and which will this year be held in Kathmandu on November 22-24. “I hope if not this generation, at least future generations will show more interest in the musical history of Nepal.”

Nepali folk instruments like the sarangi and madal have been able to survive through their incorpora­tion into the larger pop culture but around 1,300 other ethnic Nepali instruments have not been as for­tunate. Although culturally rich, rapid modernization and an apa­thy to history has made most of Nepal’s musical heritage vulnerable to extinction.

Professional musician castes like Gaine, Damai, Badi and Kapali passed on their skills down many generations. Over 100 different ethnic groups and castes had their own musical traditions and cultures that sustained their livelihood and enriched the society. “Yet we fight for bare sustenance,” says Kandel. “We are a long way from collecting and conserving all Nepali folk instru­ments and at this rate some might be extinct before we finish our work.”

Some instruments at the museum like the Panha Mukha Baja, Haade Bansuri, Yaba Mridanga, Rudra Mri­danga and Jor Murali have already become extinct, with the remain­ing specimens available only at the museum. But even at the low entry tickets of Rs 20 for students and Rs 50 for adults, the museum rarely sees visitors, and it does not make anywhere close to the kind of money it needs for its long-term survival. The temple guthi has now asked the museum to move because it has given out the premises to a univer­sity on a long-term lease. The only hope for the museum is to win the legal battle against their tenant, the hearing for which is on August 29.

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With the coming to power of the left government that now enjoys a two-thirds majority in the federal parliament, as well as effective control over all seven provinces, people were hope­ful that the ruling parties would honor their twin electoral promises of stability and prosperity. But while the government certainly appears stable, its record on prosperity has been repeatedly questioned over the past five months. The central government seems to believe that the remedy to the country’s economic woes is higher taxes, which is why the new budget increased taxes across the board. Everything from cars to liquor to daily edibles are now dearer, the rise in their prices directly or indi­rectly attributable to tax increases stipulated in the budget. The sev­en provincial governments, on the other hand, believe the center has shortchanged them in revenues and are devising their own formulas to collect more taxes. There is thus a lot of duplication in tax collection, which in turn is making the lives of Nepalis difficult.

The federal government for instance recently imposed a 13 percent Telecom Service Charge (TSC) on telecommunications and Internet Service Providers, add­ing to the cost of voice calls, text messages, data packages and internet services. This made tele­com and internet services in Nepal one of the most expensive in Asia, even though the left coalition’s elec­tion manifesto had clearly stated that free and widespread availability of internet would be one of its cen­tral goals. This year’s budget also broadened the scope of the Value Added Tax (VAT), much to the cha­grin of small businesses.

Why pay?

“We had people from the tax office coming to tell us that we needed to register with VAT soon,” says a beauty salon owner in New Road who didn’t want to be identi­fied as she feared being accused of cheating on taxes. “We are regis­tered under PAN and pay our taxes regularly. I don’t understand why a small business like ours needs to register with VAT too.” (The new budget had listed beauty salons, among other small businesses, to be registered under VAT.)

“There is no point in paying extra taxes when we’re not getting any­thing in return,” she says. “Look at the pathetic state of New Road. Basantapur is still under con­struction, we get waterlogged when it rains and we have run out of parking spaces. So what do we pay the taxes for?”

Likewise, an IT firm owner in Kathmandu, who also declined to be named, believes the current gov­ernment is not friendly towards entrepreneurs. “The government seems to have no idea how much income IT companies generate for Nepal from abroad,” he says. “IT professionals can work in any part of the world yet we’re still trying to work in our own country and create new jobs here. But the government keeps discouraging us.” H clarified that his laments were based on the recent increases in internet charges, the imposition of VAT on IT compa­nies and the ban on cryptocurrency.

As the taxes are now levied under three levels—federal, provincial and local—common folks feel the tax bur­den on them has greatly increased. Provinces, metropolitans and rural municipalities have started their own taxes and are increasing local service charges. For instance, having a birth certificate made will now set you back by up to Rs 1,000 when earlier it used to cost next to nothing.

Storm brewing

At present, all provinc­es except Province 4, the Gandaki province, are in conflict with the central government over taxes. Province 1 has intro­duced taxes on exports of 207 different mate­rials to other provinc­es. Provinces 2, 3 and 6 have introduced 0.5 per­cent “Natural Resourc­es Tax” on the export of stones, crushed stones, sand, slate, grav­el and also cement and clinkers produced under its jurisdiction.

Province 5 has passed a man­date to impose a tax of between Rs 160 to Rs 320 on Indian vehicles plying within its jurisdiction. At the same time, province 7 has introduced extra taxes for regis­tration and renewal of business firms under the “Province Develop­ment Tax.” Industries and business­es are feeling the pinch, and again their added costs are being passed on to the final consumers of their goods and services.

The federal government claims that the provinces cannot arbitrarily charge ‘unconstitutional’ taxes, and any such taxes would be summarily scrapped.

“We are aware of the various taxes provincial governments are levying and we have already taken mea­sures to control them,” says Shishir Dhungana, revenue secretary at the Ministry of Finance. “The pro­vincial governments have the right to manage their own finances but they must follow certain rules and guidelines. They cannot go against the constitution.”

Making them pay

Such conflicts of interest between different tiers of government are increasingly coming to the surface. When provinces 1, 3 and 4 intro­duced ‘District Export Tax’ on for­est, agriculture and mine products, the central government had to write to them, informing that such taxes violated the constitution. But in most cases the provincial govern­ments have refused to withdraw their taxes.

“The constitution gives the provin­cial and local governments the right to levy taxes as per their needs. But some local and provincial govern­ments have introduced extra taxes on their own,” says former finance secretary Shanta Raj Subedi. “It is the central government’s duty to make sure that the taxes don’t over­lap. Moreover, the mechanism of levying and collecting taxes should be scientific, practical and coordi­nated.” Only then, says Subedi, will people have faith in their tax system and will actually be inclined to pay timely taxes.

It does not help that as the federal setup becomes operational the pro­vincial and local level governments have started levying their own taxes. The federal government says many of these taxes are unconstitutional. Yet the provinces listen only selec­tively. All this has added to the per­ception that the federal system is costly for common folks.

Small businesses have to register under VAT and its higher tax slabs. Big companies and industries, most of which have been in a state of funk for most of the past three decades, are chaffing under ‘double taxation’.

But instead of increasing, tax col­lections have dropped, as people find all kinds of ways to evade taxes. They will continue to do so if they are not convinced that higher taxes also means better public services. They can see no functioning welfare state right now.

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When the first electric guitar was invented in the early 1930s, no one had an idea about the rev­olution it would herald in the field of music. From its hum­ble beginning as an ingenious contraption that used electro­magnetic induction to sense the vibration of strings and send signals to the amplifier to produce sound, the electric guitar has developed into an indispensable instrument for any kind of music, from blues to rock n’ roll to heavy metal and even world music. Hundreds of guitar compa­nies around the world now produce thousands of models of electric guitars and in this rather competitive market, a Nepali guitar brand is trying to create a name for itself—first in Nepal and then all over the world, the owners say.

Sahana Guitars, formed in 2012, is the brainchild of Sagun Bhattarai, a certified char­tered accountant who com­pleted his ACCA in the UK and brought back not only a CA degree but also guitar-making skills he acquired from Brit­ish luthiers. Bhattarai, a sci­ence student before he joined ACCA as well as a passion­ate guitarist, briefly worked as a Chartered Accountant in Nepal before deciding to switch career and do some­thing that really inspired him. But he had a difficult choice to make: should he make solar panels because load-shedding was at its height at the time or should he make guitars. He picked the latter, and with Apurwa Raymajhi, a tourism entrepreneur and a passion­ate musician as a partner, Sah­ana Guitars (Sanskrit word for music) was born.

“We’ve come a long way since we started,” says Ray­majhi, who also looks after Sahana’s only outlet at Star Mall, Putalisadak. “We spent almost four years in research and development and started selling only in 2015. We got good response from Nepali musicians from the start.” Raymajhi admits that Sahana Guitars is still in a learning phase but already its produc­tion models are at par with some of the best known guitar brands in the world.

“There are companies which have been manufac­turing guitars for decades and have spent millions on R&D but no one has been able to make the perfect guitar,” adds Raymajhi. “We are simi­larly upgrading our capacities according to our customers’ needs and hoping to manu­facture the best guitars for the local market.”

Right now it takes Sahana around 45-60 days to make a batch of 10 guitars. The guitar makers are planning to upgrade the machiner­ies and factory workflow to bring down the production time to 30 days. All the wood involved in crafting guitars are locally sourced. Sahana uses mahogany, ash, alder, rosewood and walnut to make different models of guitars. It is also researching a Nepali subspecies of maple, one of the most revered woods for guitar manufacturing. With young luthiers Shirsak Subedi and Apurva Chaudhary com­pleting its small team, Sahana also makes its own guitar pick­ups with materials outsourced from abroad along with other essential imported hardware.

Among the different mod­els Sahana produces, the ‘Nyauli’, ‘Who Chill,’ and the ‘Maha Chill’ are the most popular, Raymajhi informs. All of Sahana’s guitar models are named after indigenous birds of Nepal. “Birds are the symbols of freedom and we also wanted to promote the fact the Nepal is a home to a diverse species of birds.”

Apart from the regular production models, Sahana customizes guitars accord­ing to the buyers’ prefer­ence. Different colors, pickup combinations, personal­ized inlays can be selected to customize the available models. Also, Sahana builds fully customized guitars from scratch, with options in body shape, wood, neck, pickup and all accessories. Famous Nepali artists like Sunny Manandhar of Albatross, Satish Sthapit of Newaz, Sarad Shrestha of Tumbleweed and Jimi Blues of The Midnight Riders have ordered custom guitars from Sahana and rate the company highly.

“Pricewise, we are offering guitars starting at Rs 50,000, which would normally cost around $1,200 [over Rs 120,000] in the international market,” Raymajhi says. “That said, it is still expensive for a beginner and we are trying to further cut costs.” To do so Sahana plans to increase production in the near future. With interested customers contacting them from all over Nepal, India and even the US, mass production does not seem a distant prospect.

The Home Ministry has recent­ly endorsed the Foreign Cit­izens Monitoring Guidelines to strictly monitor the entry, stay and exit of foreigners coming to Nepal for different purposes. With the endorsement of the guidelines, monitoring foreign nationals in Nepal and penalizing and deport­ing those involved in illegal activities has become easier for the ministry. With the Director General of the Department of Immigration as its head, the guidelines committee can monitor foreign nationals and immediately apprehend and penal­ize those involved in “suspicious activities”. The committee, creat­ed at the central level under the chairmanship of the Home Minis­ter, can independently issue search and arrest warrants as well as take foreigners into custody for investi­gation. The committee consists of members from the National Plan­ning Commission, Secretaries of Home, Finance, Tourism, Industry, Labor and Foreign Affairs minis­tries, chiefs of all three security agencies as well as the chief of the Peace and Security division of the Home Ministry.

Immigration officers now can raid any place if they suspect illegal activities, without prior notice. The exact data on foreigners in Nepal is not available but the Immigra­tion Department suspects a large number of foreigners are living in Nepal without proper documents. Previously, foreigners could not be effectively monitored in the absence of proper mechanisms. Director General of the Department of Immi­gration Dipak Kafle informs that the guidelines will “ensure that the foreigners staying here are aware of our rules and regulations.”

The Home Ministry endorsed the guidelines following reports that many foreigners in Nepal are not abiding by their visa rules, over­staying their visa or are involved in religious conversions—which the government banned this year. The new guidelines, according to the ministry, are aimed at maintaining peace, security, border protection, and rule of law. The Guidelines com­mittee has the right to raid private residences as well as organizations/institutions linked to ‘suspicious foreigners’. Any person obstructing the investigation will also be penal­ized. The information of arrested foreigners will be handed over to the respective countries and depor­tations made by following due diplo­matic process.

The implications of the guide­lines on the expats who have made Nepal their second home for years is unclear. Nepal has strict rules on citizenships for foreign nation­als, making it difficult for them to permanently stay here as citizens. Nevertheless, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of expats living in Nepal under different visas and permits. They appear anxious.

Refusing to be named, a Euro­pean national living in Nepal for more than 20 years told APEX, “We just read the news but we have no idea what’s going on. Are they going to come to our homes to check our documents anytime they want? Will it get unsafe for the foreigners living here on legitimate visas?” she asks. “We’re still waiting to hear from our embassies on this matter.”

“I am a little concerned,” says another expat who works for a Kath­mandu-based INGO. “But I am also in a wait-and-see mode. I want to see if the new foreigner guidelines are pure political rhetoric or if there is some substance to it.”

Dipak Kafle, DG of the Department of Immigration, however, assures that the guidelines have been intro­duced only to check illegal activities of undocumented foreigners and those who are working or living here with proper visas and those who are abiding by the law have no cause for concern. “Nor is this entirely new. The DG’s office has always had the responsibil­ity of monitoring foreigners,” says Kafle. “But with the number of foreigners coming into Nepal cross­ing a million a year, it had become impossible for us to do all the monitoring alone”. Thus the guidelines to “decentralize our authority and create a more effective network”.

The said network, which involves officials from the stakeholder min­istries also comprise of all 77 Chief District Officers. With decentralized responsibility and authority, the Department of Immigration aims to secure Nepal from foreign ele­ments working against the country’s peace, security and national integ­rity. Kafle also informs that some points in the said guidelines are still under review.

The Foreign Citizens Monitoring Guidelines come as another “bold” decision of the current coalition gov­ernment. But like most of its recent decisions, the real purpose behind it remains murky. Perhaps the gov­ernment is really serious about safeguarding the country’s interest. Or perhaps it wants to hound its western critics in the name of strict monitoring. Only time will tell.

The government is tightening the oversight of foreigners staying in Nepal. Since Nepal first threw open its doors for outsiders after the 1950 democratic change, the country has been welcoming visitors from all over the world, who have come for different purposes. Back in the 1950s the CIA famously airlifted Khampa rebels from Mustang into Tibet in order to wage a guerilla war against the communist China. 

Besides being a popular tourist destination, the government suspects, Nepal has also become a hub for human and drugs trafficking, espionage and other criminal activities. With over one million foreigners expected to visit Nepal annually in the near future, the Home Ministry says it had no option but to tighten immigration rules, and hence the new Foreign Citizens Monitoring Guidelines. Or, just as likely, there has been subtle pressure from India and China to curb the activities of Westerners.

Two Israelis were recently banned from entering Nepal for five years after they tried to enter the country on fake passports. The Department of Immigration also informs that three Iranians are in its custody for a similar offense while another Iranian was denied entry on July 3. Likewise, a couple of North Koreans were deported last week after they tried to enter Nepal without visa. So perhaps beside some geopolitical compulsions there is also a genuine security threat. But it could as easily be a populist move: which patriotic Nepali can argue against safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity?  

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“I got into the betting business starting with the 2013 season of the Indian Premier League. I had befriended an Indian business­man in Thamel and he had given me the rates to the matches,” says Jeevan (30), a restauranteur who’s also a seasonal bookmaker. He takes bets on behalf of different “players” and forwards them to his ‘sources’ on the India-Nepal border. His first season of IPL betting brought him Rs 200,000 in profits and enough confidence to lure in more gamblers and act as a permanent agent of his Indian friend. He gathered bets for the IPL in the next edition (2014) as well, and then for the 2014 football World Cup. “I make money both from the bookmakers as well as from the commissions I get from the punters for collecting their bets. I now have a direct connection to many bookies in India and get the best rates,” says Jeevan. These days he collects bets for the Indian Premier League, the English Premier League and the Champions League and says he has been receiving countless bets for the 2018 World Cup.

Bibek (27) from Samakhushi is a regular “customer” of Jeevan. A student, he helps his family busi­ness in Thamel by the day and turns into an avid gambler by the night. “I love to watch football and I religiously follow all the leagues and know the players of all the teams. So I can make informed bets,” he says. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making a little money based on your skills.” Just like oth­er punters in Nepal, Bibek and Jeevan do not see a valid reason behind the illegal status of sports betting in Nepal. They claim it is a mon­ey-making opportu­nity for fans, who should be allowed to put to use their expertise in sports.

Risk worth taking

Nepal’s ‘Gambling Act 1963’ out­laws any “game of chance based on a wager of money.” (This does not include a public lottery organized with government permission or games organized in a public fair or exhibition.) First-time violators have to pay a fine of Rs 200 and/or be detained for four days. There is provision for one to three months of imprisonment for the second time, and an imprisonment of one year for the third time. Many stakeholders, however, believe the penalties for these offences are frugal, which is why gambling activities are increasing.

“It is not the amount of fine or jail-term per se that act as deter­rents. The fact that betting is a crime should be enough to dissuade gam­blers,” says Ram Krishna Subedi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Home Affairs. “We are also aware of illegal gambling rackets. We have in the past arrested and penalized bookies and match-fixers. But unless we get a formal complaint of the World Cup racket you are talking about, we cannot do anything.”

Getting a formal complaint against bookmaking is difficult. Most of these gambling rings operate with­in a closed circle of gamblers who know each other well. Bookies use Facebook Messenger, Viber and mostly Whatsapp (which they con­sider the safest) to communicate. Many of them are well-connected to ranking officers of the security agencies and the government. The muscle-power they can summon at short notice also deters possible complainers. And it is hard for a gambler to complain about a bookie because just by betting the gambler too is part of the crime.

Bet 365

Initially, the bookies in Nepal operated through betting channels based in India, Bangladesh and even Sri Lanka, relying on illegal “hundis” for disbursement of money. But with the growth of cheap and reliable communication and with our youth getting more and more tech-savvy, multiple oper­ators have emerged in the Nepali betting circuit.

With the help of friends and fam­ilies abroad, many Nepalis have opened their own betting accounts with the global gambling websites, most of them with the Gibral­tar-based Bet 365. Thus despite government warning, many Nepali netizens fearlessly speak about their bets on social media. Untraceable international accounts, easy avail­ability of software to mask their IP addresses and disbursement of money through personal channels—they are assurance enough.

APEX also found a rare group of gamblers who are betting via inter­national bookmaking sites using cryptocurrency, which is banned in Nepal. Cryptocurrency has a strong trading presence among Kathman­du’s youth and this World Cup, a bunch of crypt maniacs have found a secure way to gamble without the fear of being caught. One person called Tiwari, an IT student and self-defined “crypto trader” spilled the beans for APEX.

“There are more than half a dozen secure betting sites that accept Bitcoin and other crypto­currencies. We’re using 1xBet right now. It’s clean, easy to use and very secure,” he said. Tiwari and his friends transfer the cryptocurren­cies they have in their crypto-wal­lets, like Bittrex, to 1xBet, which in turn gives them the dollar equiva­lent of their digital money, along with a bonus. The gamesters can then bet through the site and trans­fer their winnings back to their cryp­to-wallets in the form of cryptocur­rencies. Cryptocurrency trading is almost untraceable, especially with masked IP addresses.

Billion-rupee wager

“We’re small fish though,” says Jeevan, the bookie. “There are plen­ty of big players out there who bet in one night what most of us bet in the whole sea­son.” Jeevan is referring to the wealthy busi­nessmen and professional gam­blers who put stakes worth of millions in a single match. “Just this week, a person I know bet Rs 500,000 each on the favorites in the Germany-Mexico and Brazil-Swit­zerland matches. Germany lost and Brazil got a draw. The bookie won that night handsomely.”

So gamblers, big and small, are betting on the 2018 World Cup. Taking to social media to announce their earnings or discussing last night’s winnings at a tea-stall in Samakhusi, or throwing lavish celebrations in the restau­rants of Durbarmarg, the punters are undeterred and unabashed. While the government raids small gambling dens, those in the know say most of the big fish go unpunished. They have cov­ered their tracks well to be able to benefit from an estimated billion-rupee business.

The FIFA World Cup, the world’s biggest sporting event, is a big deal in Nepal. Whole streets have morphed overnight into makeshift Brazils, Argentinas and Spains. People can be seen going about their lives in the jerseys of their favorite teams. With live screenings, restaurants are doing a roaring business. Newspapers and TV channels are filled with endless news of Lionel Messi and Harry Kane.

There are indeed millions of die-hard World Cup aficionados in Nepal. Then there is another group of people who are perhaps even more interested in this quadrennial sporting extravaganza: the gamblers.

Sports betting is an established practice in the developed world but in the Indian subcontinent it is relatively new, and illegal. Nonetheless, thousands of Nepalis have wagered their money on the teams they fancy, despite the Kathmandu Chief District Officer’s clear warning before the World Cup that anyone involved in gambling would be penalized. Nor has the arrests of those involved in the Indian Premiere League bookmaking back in May deterred them. 

APEX reporters visited some suspected “gambling dens” of Kathmandu to find out more. Sports bars, restaurants, pubs and even small coffee shops and tea houses have become meeting points for these gamblers and bookies. On our expedition, we found gamblers staking just Rs 500 a game to high rollers betting hundreds of thousands. The bookies, for their part, came from all walks of lives, some temporarily taking up betting to make quick money, others earring a living out of it.

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