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Pokhara : The number of Indian tourists visiting Pokhara to escape the brutal Indian summer and to go to the Muktinath Tem­ple in Mustang has drastically increased. Most of these tourists would have travelled to Nepal via road. Generally, few Western tourists visit Pokhara for trekking purposes in the ‘off-season’ between June and September. Before the 2015 earthquakes, Chinese tourists mostly compensated for the shortfall of the Western visitors.

“But after the earthquakes the number of Chinese tourists visiting Pokhara declined,” says Bikal Tulachan, the chairman of the West­ern Development Region Hotel Association (Pokhara). “But the number of Indian tourists visiting Pokhara for touristic and religious reasons has considerably increased,” he says. Most of them come via bus to visit Muktinath, the common pilgrimage of both Hindu and Buddhist devotees. The trend of Indian tourists visiting Pokhara in their own private vehicles has also increased.

Most hotel rooms in Pokhara are right now occupied by Indians. Of all the tourists who visit Nepal, 30 percent come to Pokhara; and nearly half those travelling to Pokhara are Indians, Tulachan informs. Gita Malankar of Gujarat in India, whom we caught by the Lakeside, says she was lured to Pokhara by its natural beauty. “I had heard that the temperature in Pokhara is mild and that it is filled with natural beauty,” she says. “I found that Pokhara is even more beautiful than I had expected.”

Likewise, Parth Malankar, also of Gujarat, informed he had come to Pokhara with another team of 90 Indians after visiting Pashupati­nath Temple and Manakamana Temple. He says he came to escape the Indian heat which is “brutal this time.” The number of Indian tourists staying at the hotels in Muktinath has also increased, says Suraj Gurung of the Muti­nath-based Grand Hotel. These days, various Indian religious leaders organize sermons at Muktinath’s Ranipauwa, which has added to the place’s popularity among Indian tourists.

Of the 700 beds in 22 hotels of Muktinath, which lies 3,710 meters above sea level, most are occupied by Indian tourists. Besides the Muktinath Temple, the majestic views of Dhau­lagri, Nilgiri and Thorung La mountains are the other main draws of Muktinath.

By Krishna Mani Baral

 To try to explain away the failings of Nepali Congress, the main opposition, by saying that it is a ‘divided house’, would be unfair on the previous generations of its lead­ers. Congress has always been a divided house, right from its founding in 1950, when the strong personalities of BP Koirala and Subarna Shumsher Rana repeatedly clashed over the party’s future course. Its other founding fathers like Tanka Prasad Acharya, Dilli Raman Regmi and Ganesh Man Singh were also frequently quarrelling. After the 1990 political change, feuding started between Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Girija Prasad Koirala. Then, in 2002, the breakaway faction of Sher Bahadur Deuba would form a separate party. It is true that current senior leaders like Deuba, Ram Chandra Poudel and Krishna Prasad Sitaula are constantly at loggerheads. Relatively younger leaders like Gagan Thapa and Biswo Prakash Sharma are vying for greater space, even as the old guard looks to hang on. But again that is nothing new. Also, even when divided along personality lines Con­gress had been able to play the role of an effective opposition to previous post-1990 communist governments.

That the party is failing in its role as an opposition is evi­dent enough. For instance when the communist government presented its annual policies and programs, curiously, it was the MPs of the ruling parties who were criticizing it in the par­liament, and not opposition MPs. Moreover, Congress leaders have not grown tired of invoking the specter of ‘communist dictatorship’, which in any case has been a hard-sell, rather than do what they are supposed to: take up people’s liveli­hood issues and hold the government to account.

“Congress is yet to emerge from the state of shock resulting from its humiliating electoral defeat,” says Bishnu Sapkota, a political analyst. “This shock seems to have bred an inferior­ity complex among the Congress rank and file, which makes them reactive rather than proactive.”

Perhaps this defeated mindset explains why Nepali Con­gress, instead of setting the agenda as the main opposition, finds itself in an uncomfortable position whereby its leaders are having to take up the course recommended by the hand­ful of anti-establishment voices expressed in popular media.

Right now the country has no option but to rely on Con­gress to play the role of a responsible and responsive opposi­tion in other to keep the government honest. This is the time for Congress leaders and MPs to set aside differences and collectively work to enhance the party’s opposition role. If not, both the country and their political careers will suffer o

“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.

In 1956, Sunar Gurung was return­ing to his hometown of Ngawal in Manang after completing a year-long trading spree that spanned over Nepal, India, Burma and Thailand, among other countries. Although a citizen of Nepal, the government of Nepal hadn't yet allowed its citizens to travel abroad unless they were members of the royal family or of the British Gurkha regiment or were highly influential individuals with travel exemptions granted by the King. In the case of Gurung, he wasn’t any of the above. So the only way a Nepali like him could travel to distant countries was via an Indian passport.In the case of the people of Manang (Manange), there were many inhabitants who had settled in Shillong and parts of Assam in India. This allowed every Manange who visited India to get an Indi­an passport using the address and information of the other Mananges who were already living in India. Gurung was no different and now wielding an Indian passport, he traveled all over South Asia, which a common Nepali citizen in the 1940s could only dream about.

With his total earnings of approxi­mately INRs 2,500 in pocket (equiv­alent to US $625 then), a princely sum in those days, Gurung finally headed back to Ngawal, Manang after being away from home for over a year. While crossing Assam on his journey home, he was con­fronted by a group of traders from another large village of Manang who beat him black and blue and robbed him of everything. After weeks of negotiations and involvement of other parties (read: friends and fam­ily members of the perpetuators) the robber-traders agreed to return a paltry Rs 700!

Unable to come to terms with returning home with an amount that would not be nearly enough to pay off his debts nor to feed his fam­ily of six young children, Gurung made the decision to turn around and try his luck again: He would use that Rs 700 to get to Calcutta.

In Calcutta, Gurung would buy local products and seek arbitrage in selling them on the streets across other South-East Asian countries. This involved (and this was true of other traders from Manang as well) selling herbal products amassed in the hilly regions of Nepal and India. With the earnings, he went to Bur­ma to purchase cheap rubies, jade and other precious stones. He then took those stones across the border into Thailand where he would sell some and make the leftovers into jewelry. The finished products were taken to Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunei and sold at a premium.

As with every Manange of his time, Gurung's childhood was spent in abject poverty: No formal school­ing, one meal a day, one food-bowl, a dirty pair of shoes and ragged clothes on his back. With an infer­tile and rocky soil base where only potatoes and buck-wheat grew and with an inhospitable freezing cli­mate, the Mananges could care  less about education or schooling and focused mainly on taking care of their basic needs.

To provide for their families and secure a bright future for them, the Mananges had to indulge in risks larger than any other Nepali of that era could imagine! Based off that need for survival, the male members of the generation prior to Gurung's left Manang and headed to Kathmandu to seek trading and arbitrage opportunities. There they found a huge demand for products easily available in Manang: Tibetan mastiffs, the scent of musk deer and Himalayan herbs. Armed with these items the next time around, they flooded into Kathmandu and sold the goods for a handsome profit.

As time went by, they brain­stormed further and realized a great­er potential lay in doing the same in a large city like Calcutta. Later, they would spread over to Burma, Thai­land, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brunei and Malaysia, where they sold their Himalayan products, purchased the local products found in each coun­try, and then sold them in another. Incredibly, all this was happening in the 1940s when Nepal was officially a "closed" economy that didn't per­mit its masses to be educated nor allowed its citizens to travel abroad!

Gurung, still distraught over being robbed of his life savings in Assam, ended up in Brunei six months later. One warm evening in 1957, after hawking around his products all day, he and his other trader friends from Manang went to a local park where they partook in physical exercises. That very night, while sleeping on the street as every other Manange trader did in order to save money, Gurung suffered a massive heart attack due to health complications arising from his hard life. He passed away at the tender age of 39 in Band­er Seri Begawan, Brunei.

His body was left abandoned by his petrified friends and relatives who were conducting their business illegally without proper paperwork or visa. Worse, for his family back in Manang, it meant no goodbyes, no tears, and no blood money from the government. Only questions lingered on and so did the sad lives of his six children left to spiral deeper into the web of poverty.

Gurung was my grandfather.

BY KARMA TENZING