Shailaja’s fasting and silence

By SANGITA RAYAMAJHI

Ileft Nepal for the United States under a Fulbright programme with lots of images hovering before me. The first one was of Shailaja Acharya fasting to expiate the mistakes of her democratic party, the Nepali Congress established by the late leader and literary writer of great eminence, B P Koirala. The second was the statement of Maoist leader Prachanda withdrawing the mutually agreed seven-month old cease-fire. And the third was the book I had been reading, Language and Gender (CUP 2003) written by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet. And of course a number of other images that assailed my mind.

To leave the homeland at such times is perhaps, as many people assumed, would be a relief to me while others thought it was not the right time to leave. Half of my family travelled across the Pacific to this end when I flew in with my younger son. But how do I look at my departure with what was happening in the country?

The above images are important. To a woman writer on the woman’s subject, Shailaja Acharya’s fast was a very meaningful metaphor. As I wrote earlier, it is about her style of lonely protest of a woman within a party that is ruled by men. Many women have done that. But they swallow the brunt of history. Shailaja did not. She resisted by refusing to forget history and by refusing to be pushed into a limbo after so many years of sacrifice for the party and democracy.

I must confess, writing about Shailaja is not part of my political ideology or agenda, which I have none. But, to a seeker of images in history, I have found this woman’s fasting more significant than her lonely protest earlier, a subject that I have written in my book Can a Woman Rebel? With Shailaja Acharya fasting in a very Gandhian manner, the fast that she broke as I read, on August 31 by drinking fruit juice at a local hospital, but still short of covering her promised 10 days of expiation. I think she has drawn the attention of not so much of her party that has different priorities about the struggle. Nor of the King and, very sadly, not the least of women themselves, who consider her fasting as one more show of eccentricity by a woman, who should have toed the line of her party leaders, as of the people, who want to see honest confessions by people, who have made mistakes. Others would think that to write about this woman when the nation is back on warpath, with a promise to be bloodier than before, is not the right thing to do. But my reasons are different.

I am not writing about Shailaja. I am writing about the image of a woman who looks at the history of her organisation anew and wants to save the values that she thinks have been eroded. More importantly, this fasting of expiation is the logical performance by a democratic politician who has inherited the democratic modus operandi as popularised by Gandhi and her own uncle the late B P Koirala. But my arguments are the following that a woman’s rebellion takes a special mode if she has to make her voice heard in a context dominated by the male politicians. If she fails to make it she takes other avatars. From Meera Bai to the women, who take the path of independence through means such as ritual and renunciation, we see a spirit of rebellion. In such rebellion the woman has to take her own decision. Shailaja too after a long period of her work for democracy chose to call her fasting upabash, which has a ritual connotation. People take a fast to purify the body and concentrate on good work.

The main question, however, is why did this woman have to take an upabash? Speaking without any prejudices whatsoever, to me this fasting is a metaphor of woman’s rebellion. When she fails to make her voice heard, when she knows that she is thinking right or wrong in her individual way but fails to materialise it, she takes recourse to the rituals.

My intention is not to judge whether Shailaja’s relation with her party is good or bad, but as I have written over her quiet rebellion previously also this fast assumes a great significance. In this fasting she has combined ritual with ideology. Not only that, she has also combined history with the problems of the current times. So, my question is when a woman takes an individual decision in matters of faith, artistic perceptions and social programmes, does she have to be relegated a space which is like an Ashram or a name that is suitable to an eccentric? People are free to turn a deaf ear, but they do so more in the case of a woman.

To think of the country back from here when you are not familiar with the events, it becomes a little strange. My feeling is that in Nepal people have stopped listening to each other. It is high time people heard each other—people belonging to different political parties and holding extreme views. If a woman wa1nts to say something important she must be listened to. A woman has long tried so hard to make her point but she is not much listened to. Shailaja’s fasting is the silent but strong protest against that indifference.

Now to come back to the third image the book Language and Gender written by two women, it deconstructs the language politics. I got interested in this book because inspired by Acharya’s fast I was looking for something to read about this, to find out—is her fast a silence or a loud protest? These women’s study shows that "Speech is, among other things, an absence of silence, and in the interplay between speech and silence, each frames the other" (119). A marvellous find! Shailaja’s silence is the loudness of speech. The eerie silence that overwhelms the country is created by the loud noise of the guns.

No fasting is going to change people’s mind in Nepal today, least of all the fasting of a woman. Ironically, Shailaja is fasting for the expiation of the sin committed by men. That message if it comes out does not interest me. But whether Shailaja keeps or breaks her fast, will make no difference to anybody when people have to run for cover under the barrage of bullets and the deafening sounds of guns. Well, that is a little exaggeration, but also a truism. I am sure a seasoned politician Shailaja is fully familiar with this scenario. That is why she chose to speak alone. When the maddening crowds are running for something else and you do not, instead, sit fasting, you are bound to draw some attention.

But silent protests are stronger than the sounds of the guns. Woman’s language of silence from her lonely upabash will be heard one day when too many guns will have caused enough harm to all.

Flying safe and sound

By Hemant Arjyal

"...do whatever you want with me after landing"

T he above line was certainly not what was purred in the Captain’s ears by an air hostess in a sexy novel. Nor was it a plea by a lone hijacker on being overtaken by severe bouts of air sickness in the midst of extreme air turbulence. It was, simply, an earnest plea of a frightened co-pilot to his overconfident Captain while approaching Kathmandu airport some years ago. This came to light in a discussion forum on an Internet site devoted to aviation safety. And it is described in Journal of the Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine, UK, (#20), December 1989.

It is normal for crews to lock their instruments on to navigational aids like VOR/DME for directional and distance guidance. The junior pilot, in this case, was concerned when the connection was suddenly lost. Microwave signals associated with the navigational aids get interrupted when obstructions come in between. This is quite common in the Kathmandu track due to the mountainous terrain.

The junior pilot was not satisfied even after the Captain told him that he knew the track inside out. The junior pilot countered that the aircraft must be below the minimum approach altitude and the mountains could be shielding the navigational signals. It is obvious that the Captain did not like his long experience being questioned. Being extremely agitated on sensing that the aircraft was heading straight for the mountain, the copilot begged with the Captain, "For God’s sake, go up to the safe altitude and you can do whatever you want with me after landing!"

Fortunately, the Captain, who was otherwise acting like a stubborn mule, relented and gunned the throttle for a steep climb. As the aircraft broke through the cloud they saw how narrowly they had missed a ridge. Later, the Captain thanked the junior and apologized for his erred judgement. Had it not been for the alert Copilot, this could have ended being the first ever Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT) case involving a "jet," much before accident of the ill-fated Pakistan International Airlines PK 268 in 1992 which killed all 167 on board.

The two main causes of commercial-aviation fatalities fall under CFIT and Approach and Landing Accidents (ALA) categories, which together account for about 80 percent of fatalities in commercial aviation. CFIT occurs when an airworthy aircraft under the control of the flight crew is flown unintentionally into terrain, obstacles or water, usually with no prior awareness of the crew. CFIT can occur any time during the flight, but is most common during approach and landing.

Study carried out to find ways to reduce ALA has concluded that it is possible to do so by following recommended measures of which the first six of the eight are:

(1) To be familiar to carry out missed approach procedure. These are always airport specific and therefore it is very essential to familiarise with the procedure of the one being approached. Frantically turning the pages of manual at the last moment or making unauthorised climbs and turns in the airports vicinity could lead to catastrophic accidents.

(2) Not to make unutilized and rushed approach. Trying to land in a hurry by following unauthorized practice could also lead to disaster as happened with PK 268.

(3) Avoid taking unnecessary risks in adverse conditions. Accidents tend to take place in inclement weather conditions like heavy rain, storms or in low visibility. Perfect weather itself is seldom the cause of any accident. Adverse ground conditions could be in the form of wet or slippery runways due to rain or snow.

(4) Use radio altimeter as an alternate tool. It is logical to cross-check with an alternate instrument, especially where the approach path or the surrounding terrain is not flat.

(5) Sharing of information. It will be a great help if details of such incidents could be made available so that crews could refer to these in advance. For example, we might have had one less CFIT case had the PIA crews read the incident related to RAF described earlier.

(6) Improving communication and mutual understanding between ATC (Air Tower Control) and flight crews. Misunderstanding is always seen as one of the contributing factors leading to accidents. Language and communication problems between the flight crew and the ATC was one factor that was found to have contributed to crash of the Thai Airways flight, TG 311, in 1992 in which 113 people perished. English, which is the official aviation language, is neither perfectly understood nor pronounced by non-native speakers—either at ATC or the flight crews. It is necessary that attention is paid to improve the speaking and listening abilities of at least the air traffic controllers.

The last two recommendations are: (7) establishing and adhering to adequate standard operating procedures and flight crew decision making processes and (8) collecting and analyzing of in-flight parameters and identifying performance trends from the point of view of safety. These are very important recommendations and both have very wide scope. It is therefore beyond the scope of this short piece.

Published CFIT data (1992-2002) show that there have been 43 such cases involving big aircraft. Two of the seven cases in 1992 took place in the vicinity of Kathmandu giving it a very bad name. As if that was not bad enough, we had again two more such cases in 1999 (B-727 & HS-748). The list of CFIT cases in Nepal involving various types of aircraft is long.

The trends of such accidents have shot up in recent years and this is very alarming to say the least. Concerted efforts need to be made by all involved in the aviation industry and infrastructure development to at least reduce incidents of CFIT and ALA related cases.

Dreaming big

By DR SABIN RANABHAT

If wish is father to the thought, imagination is the true mother of invention. Imagination has played a pivotal role in shaping human civilisation. If Newton had not beaten his brains on why an apple fell down (why not up), we would not have known about gravity inside out. Development of rockets was possible only after the thorough knowledge of gravity. Similarly, if the Wright brothers had not imagined of flying like birds, we would not have aeroplanes. However, some people opine that we would have been better off without them; there would have been no plane crashes. In retrospect, Americans could not have hurled holocaust on Japanese from the air. And terror King bin Laden would still be tearing his hair for want of a feasible way to destroy the twin towers of New York.

We are all endowed with a prolific faculty of imagination. In my childhood, I used to dream of becoming an engineer after I found out that buildings, bridges and bull-dozers were all built by engineers. I also wanted to become a teacher. Teachers seemed to know everything at that time, and a pilot, too. It was so much fun even to watch planes fly above the clouds. Most of all, I was fascinated by superhuman ability of a Hindi movie hero to dodge bullets, beat a score of villains hollow without getting a scratch, and to top it all, win ‘the heart and mind’ of the heroine. In late childhood, the notion of I-want-to-become-a-doctor-when-I-grow-up was repeatedly hammered into my head by my parents. When somebody asked about what I would like to become in future, I automatically puked out the stereotyped sentence.

For those who did not study Physics at high school: light traverses three hundred thousand kilometres in one second. Thought waves travel even faster than that. That is why we can build castles in the air in picoseconds during spells of imagination. For personal luxury, we dream of a fabulous home, an expensive car, good food and beautiful clothes. For the nation, we want leaders with vision, industries with flourishing businesses, smooth highways without potholes; a country developed in all spheres. But reality bites when we wake up from our reverie. Castles of our dreams go down like ninepins in nanoseconds. In reality, we are one of the world’s poorest nations.

Even a massive change in the political system did not help. With dreams of better future, we risked our lives to restore ‘democracy’ thirteen years ago. As a bunch of nitwits at the helm misdirected the system, goods and services could not be delivered to the people. Democracy was an ‘infant’ in their eyes.

I am dreaming of a new Nepal prospering under multi-party democracy with responsible people in the driving seat, and that, hoping against hope, in this system factions of various hues will be accommodated.

The peace talks and after

DR Baburam Bhattarai

The seven month long ceasefire and peace talks between the old monarchical regime and the revolutionary democratic forces led by CPN (Maoist) have finally collapsed on August 27. The international community, capping with the UN Secretary General to the government of Australia down under, have expressed serious concern over it and called for solution of all outstanding problems through continued dialogue. This warrants a short overview of why the talks failed and what the prospects for the future are:

Why the talks failed

There has been much media dissection on why the talks failed and many have tended to put the blame on procedural matters and similar secondary issues. But we, and for that matter any serious student of political science and history of democratic struggle in Nepal, would locate the impasse on the seemingly irreconcilable class and political contradiction between a feudal-bureaucratic monarchy backed by foreign imperialist powers and democratic forces fighting for complete sovereignty of the people on all state affairs.

A cursory glance at the two political proposals put forward by the two warring sides at the negotiating table (i.e. by CPN (Maoist) during the first round of talks on April 27 and by the representatives of the royalist regime during the third round of talks on August 17 ) would suffice to bring out the huge gap between the two political positions. The talks failed precisely on those core political issues which could find no meeting point despite any amount of diplomatic niceties and procedural finesse.

The CPN (Maoist) proposal identifies the two-and-a quarter century old feudal-bureaucratic state presided over by the autocratic monarchy, with cosmetic reforms in 1950 and 1990, as the root cause of all class, national, regional, gender and other contradictions and seeks basic structural transformation in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres of the state simultaneously to solve the fundamental problems of the country. However, given the stage of strategic equilibrium in the seven and half year long civil war and the sensitive geo-strategic positioning of the country sandwiched between two super states of India and China, the proposal offers the creation of a transitional state system through democratic means with common minimum content and form/process of promulgation of a new constitution. Whereas a round-table conference, interim-government and election to a constituent assembly were proposed as the process of creating a new constitution, the minimum content of the new constitution were proposed as: unrestricted sovereignty of the people; no ‘unchangeable’ features in the constitution; creation of a new national army; proportional representation of different classes, nationalities, regions, dalits, women etc in the legislature and proper representation of all in the government; a secular state; guarantee of rights to self-determination and autonomy to oppressed nationalities and regions; guarantee of multi-party system, rule of law, freedom of expression etc;education, health and employment as fundamental rights to all; revolutionary land reform on the basis of ‘land-to-the tiller’ and protection to national industry and trade; and abrogation of all unequal treaties and strict practice of non-aligned foreign
policy.

Along with these, it was proposed that political parties would be free to propagate in favour of a republican state during the election to the constituent assembly which would be held with no preconditions attached. In sum, the essence of CPN (Maoist) proposal was to let the people exercise their sovereignty in an unrestricted manner and complete the unfinished agenda of bourgeois democratic revolution in the country.

Contrary to this, the so-called ‘Concept for Forward-looking Reforms in the State-system’ proposed by the old regime eulogised the traditional role of the monarchy as quintessential for national unity and sought to preserve it for ever as ‘indispensable basis’ of the constitution. On the crucial issue of the Royal Nepal Army (RNA), which has been the bulwark of the monarchy and a vehicle for counterrevolution time and again, the old regime was not even prepared to discuss, leave alone negotiate, and rather sought outlandishly the immediate surrender of arms by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Also it rejected almost all the other ‘minimum content’ of the new constitution proposed by us, by making offer of only selective ‘reforms’ on peripheral issues to hoodwink the gullible, like twenty-five percent reservation for women. The most significant hurdle, however, was the obstinate unwillingness of the old regime to go for a new constitution and its ridiculous stand to introduce ‘reforms’ through ‘amendments’ to the old moribund constitution, which is already mutilated beyond recognition after the royal takeover on October 4 last year.

Hence these two irreconcilable political positions of the two warring sides practically sealed the fate of the peace talks after the third round on August 17-19. Any observer with a sense of objectivity and conversant with the ground reality of class and political balance of forces in Nepal (i.e. a triangular contention between the monarchists, parliamentarian and revolutionary democratic forces) would, however, acknowledge that a free and fair election to a constituent assembly under an interim government would have been the best course of compromise acceptable to all the three contending sides. It is quite ironic that both the monarchist and parliamentarian forces, who swear by the sovereignty of the people and multi-party democracy, have chickened out of going to the sovereign people to elect a constituent assembly, and thus precipitated a bloody civil war in the country. No sane person or organisation would now blame CPN (Maoist) for an intransigent stand, as the Party openly espousing a strategic goal of people’s democratic republic has come down to the immediate slogan of a constituent assembly.

Apart from this broader ideological-political issue, the saboteur role of the Royal Nepal Army, with the prompting of some foreign powers, has contributed significantly to derail the peace talks. Not only did the Royal Nepal Army consistently violate the cease-fire and code-of-conduct mutually agreed upon by the two sides, it openly challenged the decision of the second round of talks to confine the RNA activities within five kilometers of its permanent bases. The most serious and provocative incident was the massacre of nineteen unarmed political activists by the Royal Nepal Army in Doramba (Eastern Nepal) on the very day of start of third round of talks on August 17. This ghastly crime has now been corroborated even by an enquiry commission sent by the National Human Rights Commission owing allegiance to the old monarchical regime.

Role of international forces

As most of the rulers of the semi-colonial and dependent third world countries are just the puppets in the hands of their foreign imperialist masters, the role of foreign forces cannot be minimized in the internal political dynamics of the country. This ‘foreign hand’ was quite visible and active in our case, too, and can be said to have significantly influenced the outcome of the peace talks, despite their pious official pronouncements to the contrary.

Even though a large section of the international community was seen sincerely committed and endeavoring for the success of the peace-talks, some forces could not conceal their sabotaging role from the beginning to the end. Leading this evil band was US imperialism led by President George W Bush and US Ambassador Malinowsky.

On the very morrow of the first round of talks on April 27, the US government put CPN(Maoist) on the co-called "other terrorists" list, signed a five-year ‘anti-terrorist’ agreement with the royalist regime, announced the supply of several billion rupees worth of ultra-modern arms and equipments to the Royal Nepal Army and sent hundreds of military advisors and trainers. Also, sudden rush of hordes of US ‘strategic experts’ with dubious antecedents to the country at the same time could not have been a mere coincidence.

In the immediate aftermath of the break-down of peace talks the US ambassador, along with a few others, was seen hectically campaigning to make the agitating parliamentary parties surrender to the King, so as to ‘isolate the Maoists’. In the process these self-professed guardians of ‘democracy’ have unmasked their own autocratic monarchist and militarist characters and isolated themselves from the masses of the people fighting for their democratic rights and freedom.

CPN(Maoist), however, as reflected in the recent letter of Chairman Prachanda to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, has been assuring the international community of its full commitment to all universal democratic values and principles, and appeals to all to stop every sort of foreign military and otherwise interventions in the country and let the Nepalese people choose their own destiny
themselves.

The future prospects

Despite the ultimate break-down of cease-fire and peace talks our Party has positively assessed the overall political developments so far. It is our considered view that the decision to enter into cease-fire and negotiation process was correct in the concrete historical situation, and through our sincere efforts to find a forward- looking political solution in a peaceful manner we have won over millions of masses and middle-strata of the population to the cause of democratic revolution and isolated the regressive monarchist forces. Even the opinion polls conducted within the status quoists dispensation have over the months consistently showed that a large majority of the people across all strata and regions support the democratic programmes and policies advanced by our Party. This is one of the reasons why the so-called votaries of ‘democracy’ have chickened out of the innocuous proposal of a constituent assembly which is supposed to be the ‘highest form’ of bourgeois democracy.

However, the political developments in the country in the coming months are likely to follow different twists and turns and the democratic forces would have to be prepared for every eventuality. As the real power of the old state is now centralised in the monarchy and its Royal Nepal Army and the formidable foreign power brokers are lobbying hard to make the King share some power with parliamentary forces so as to mount a unified assault against the revolutionary democratic forces, coming weeks may see yet another governmental change. But whether the mask would be ‘white’ (i e Nepali Congress) or ‘red’ (i e the revisionist UML), the real power will be wielded by the King and his Royal Nepal Army and prodded by the foreign masters. Consequently a head-on collision between the regressive and progressive forces would be unavoidable. A victory of the progressive forces is a foregone conclusion, although the cost may be too high.

( Dr Baburam Bhattarai was the Convener of the 5-member Negotiating Team of CPN(Maoist) and is also the In-Charge of the International Department of the Party.)

Hard facts, not fiction

PURAN P BISTA

I t was in the early 1980s. The All Assam Students’ Union had invited student leaders from Northeast states for a general meeting in Guwahati. The Assam agitation, then, had just begun. No Nepali had expected that, within a year, the entire rainbow region would be engulfed by terror. Some of those, who had fled Burma after Military General Ne Win seized power, narrated the "atrocities" meted out on the Nepali minority by the General’s cadres in 1963. But only the Nepali migrants living in Northeast states that border Burma were aware of this. And for the second generation, it became more of a tale than reality, as they had never faced any sectarian violence.

I was then preparing for my high school leaving certificate examination in Imphal, Manipur. No one knew what the student leaders of Northeast India had in common. Moreover, the Nepali migrants living in Northeast for decades (that is, before the 1950 treaty between Nepal and India) had never felt, until then, any threat to their settlement.

However, in Manipur, the student leaders went on a rampage on the first day of 1980 HSLC examination. All Manipur Students’ Union (AMSU) targeted only the non-natives, which included Nepalis, Biharis, Assamese and Marwaris. A few non-natives were shot dead in the capital city before Manipur’s People’s Liberation Army (insurgent group) actually began to attack the minority communities.

The state board authority holding HSLC examination had had to defer the examination for an indefinite period only to invite more atrocities on the minorities later. Troubleshooter R K Dorendra was the state chief minister. A few months later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sacked the state’s chief minister, inviting him to Delhi, citing that "Dorendra would be appointed as India’s new ambassador to Norway".

Similarly, Meghalaya state, too, saw similar sectarian violence in 1987. But this primarily targeted the Nepali minority only, living in Shillong, Jowai and other parts of Meghalaya. The floating population, who could produce no evidence of their settlement although they had been there for generations, became the victims. It was reported in India’s Weekly magazine: " Dozens of innocent children of Nepalese working in Jowai coal-mines died of hunger because their parents did not return to their home even weeks after the incident." Many Nepalis, who were forced to flee Meghalaya, still recount their horror. Mohan Joshi, younger brother of the former member of state legislative assembly, is one of them. He recalls: "It was basically an attempt to evict the Nepali minority from the state." Omar Bahadur Rai, former principal of Gorkha High School, Shillong, echoed a similar view. In fact, the Gorkha High School — established in 1948 — was burnt down by the local Khasis that year. At that point, the state had over 150,000 Nepali population. It is also a fact that until 1960, the Nepalis were in majority, in Shillong.

The state authority dumped the Nepali minority at Assam’s border, warning them not to return to Meghalaya. In both the incidents, the state police allegedly backed the student leaders who were in complicity with the sate political leaders. For instance, student leader Bull Lyndoh, who became agriculture minister later, was charged for his involvement in the "ethnic" clashes in Meghalaya. Lyndoh was the president of Khasi Students’ Union in 1987. R K Dorendra, according to Kishor Thapa, former member of state legislature, was responsible for the 1980 sectarian violence in Manipur. Two Nepali villages — in Puroom and Sagolmang of Manipur — were burnt down at night. A week later, they had to flee the state when one prominent businessman, Indra Bahadur Bhattarai, was murdered in broad daylight. Half of the Nepalis living there for almost five decades left the state for their native land. Today, most of those, who left Meghalaya and Manipur, are settled in Rupandehi, Jhapa, and Banke and other parts of Nepal’s Terai, besides Kathmandu and Pokhara.

"That was not the beginning," writes Taranath Upadhyaya, a Nepali literary figure, whose ancestors went to Tezpur, Assam, as graziers: "I experienced the state’s complicity [in policies that were hostile] towards the Nepali minority during the 1962 Indo-China war. Delhi began to look at us more distrustfully than ever before." He cites two reasons: "Many Gurkha soldiers had surrendered to the Chinese troops and King Mahendra’s royal coup of December 1960," without elaborating it. But, the influx of the Nepalis to Northeast after the 1950 Nepal-India Treaty of Peace and Friendship must have led the state leaders to fear that the Nepalis might create "social unrest" in the region. Upadhyaya writes Prime Minister Jawharlal Nehru had even bid "good bye" to Northeast India when the Chinese troops entered Mishamari in the North East Frontier Agency.

Upadhyaya concludes in his interview in a magazine, Brahmaputra, published by Tribhuvan University’s Northeast-Nepali students, "The Indo-China war was the beginning of discouraging the Nepali settlement in northeast India, although they zealously helped build the region."

(The writer can be reached at <vista24p@hotmail.com>)

Pilgrimage tourism for immediate response

Aditya Baral

The present is the product of the past. And the future is a product of the present. Reviving the tourism today should have been the effort of the past. It does not mean that we should just sit back and accuse the history. But, the "History shows the way" and "Time heals the woes" are more relevant adages to delve into. Time is never enough for exercise. Going global, regional or local is also subject of quandary due to roller coaster situation of the world. However, the world responds, our geo-political situation, size and resource force us to choose the regional concepts for reaping immediate returns. As we have undergone many ups and downs in the past, our passion for short-term gains has trivialized all the long-term interests. Hence, the most responsive ready-made market for us is Pilgrimage tourism — that too India focused.

The southern market is a composite of varied mix. A giant market but dynamic in nature. Indian market is one of the most complex in terms of its diversified topographical composition. If one delves in to tourism mix it contains, what is not there ? Our cultural, racial, and geographical affinities are the competing strengths if we are talking to stimulate the regional dynamics. And these elements matter a lot to the thrifty populace of South Asia who have recently learnt to crawl in the name of tourism. In fact, as the economic activity gains momentum, undisturbed by the horrendous acts of terrorism, the movement of people is sure to excel in all walks of leisure, adventure, or essential business tourism. Hence, in order to evolve the process of development of any sector, background environment is the paramount pre-requisite, as a bottom line instigator.

It all depends on our endeavours while abetting or abating-tourism from India. Since the security apprehension ubiquitously witnessed amongst the travelers in the past, could not deter the pilgrims from travelling. As travelling as a pilgrim is assumed safe with its purpose. Hence, we should condone our lopsided notion that pilgrimage tourism means social activity alone. Because, so far, we have not been able to harness this segment in terms of real economic activity. Maybe our past exercises or experiences have not been able to justify our cause.

Nepal and India hold a special status for spiritual genesis of Mahatmas, Gurus and Saints. It is obviously true that the opulent countries have been able to discover big rockets, destructive nuclear bombs, mind boggling discoveries in the applied or biological science but they are still at infancy in the arena of human mind and spiritual pedagogy. As a result, all the scientists and technocrats are turning their head towards these countries to hone their existing knowledge for more advanced discoveries. We should perceive these specialties as our niche areas, which we have been possessing from the time immemorial trivializing the huge market in stead of other ephemeral trades that ensures quick returns.

Traveling in the name of religion needs no logic, rationale, and justification. Religion has no boundaries. There is also no pre-requisites or eligibility criteria to follow. Religion often ignores the concept of caste, creed or colour. When there are so much of accommodative avenues to fit into any qualities of human beings, why is our interpretation about the pilgrimage confined within the narrow horizon of wild perception? Today, backed by rising disposable income buoyancy, pious nature, myriads of affinity, India could be the market for Nepal where we could reap immediate benefit.

In fact, Hindu and Buddhism being the mild, flexible and tolerant religions, they are very accommodating in their approach. Nepal, being virtually the epicenter of Hinduism and Buddhism, has multiple aspects to attract tourists. The respectable co-existence of religion in perfect harmony for long, endowed with colossal natural, cultural and adventure settings at the backdrop, could easily entice the heart and minds of all. Moreover, our social paradigm being similar, we wish to derive extra value against every money expended. Thriftiness syndrome is in fact more popular amongst the South Asian buyers. As the world has turned too competitive due to severe financial crisis plummeted by series of seismic terror, the expectation amongst consumers is spiraling, value added culture is gradually gaining legitimacy in every sphere of economic activities pushing the erstwhile economic principles in topsy-turvy.

The recent campaign carried by the blending of expertise by the three institutions-Royal Nepal Airlines, Nepal Tourism Board and the Pashupati Development Trust in order to stimulate the South Indian pilgrimage market is a case in point worth mentioning here. As a result, most of the flights bound for Nepal from Bangalore are lifting a good number of passengers due to the lucrative composite package blended for pilgrims in addition to sightseeing and other tours in line with passenger’s choice.

Nepal could lose its substance in terms of its monotonous offers in the long run. However, if we keep abreast of the latest trend in consumerism, if we cocktail our products in tune with the market trend, all others products might stay at bay due to our inefficiency or deficiency (resource) in showcasing them, but religious sentiments are never compromised and hence never ever lose its essence. In order to make the tourism most thriving trade, the efforts should be on integrating pilgrimage as a component in all sorts of packages if we are specially eyeing the market of the south. Pent-up demand merely needs push button packages.

Moreover, gestation time required for the Indians to travel to Nepal being almost non existent, risk bearing in the name of pilgrimage tours being high amongst them, Nepal would be the best place for them if we are ready enough to cater with mixed pickle tourism against the real edible mixed pickle that they have been entertaining us for long.