Nepal uprising: The aftermath of a Gen Z-led political reset

KATHMANDU

A week after Nepal was engulfed in flames, the Himalayan nation and its capital Kathmandu are slowly returning to a semblance of normality. The smoke has cleared but the scars remain. The Singha Durbar, once the opulent seat of power, stands charred and hollow, its elegant chandeliers, ornate staircases and balustrades damaged beyond repair. In those frenzied hours mobs stormed the parliament and surrounding ministries, setting ablaze the symbols of state power. Even the supreme court was not spared.

Old and young Nepalese, including schoolchildren, have long understood their country’s corrupt political structures. What finally stirred a revolution was not a charismatic leader or a revolutionary manifesto, but social media posts showing the nepo kids—rich children of corrupt politicians—flaunting their wealth and exposing the economic divide plaguing Nepal. Weeks of growing frustration led to a campaign against corruption on social media, mostly initiated by Gen Z groups. One of the prominent groups, Hami Nepal, says it began the campaign earlier. Blood, fire and chaos followed soon after Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s government banned several social media platforms. The government then instructed police to deal strictly with protesters.

Three major grievances perhaps sounded the death knell for the Oli government: rampant corruption, the social media ban and the use of brute force by police against mostly peaceful protesters. These sparked mobs who burned down the most protected sites in Kathmandu. The entire political ecosystem was toppled in what many are calling a “flash revolution”, remarkable both because it came from an unexpected section of society, those under 30, and because it ended almost as soon as it began.

As with many revolutions, the movement overthrew the existing government but did not replace it with a fully formed political structure. Having succeeded in removing Oli, Nepal’s people are now asking who can lead the country, cleanse the system and build a better nation.

An election is scheduled for March 5 next year. At the moment, most people are talking about Balendra “Balen” Shah, the 35-year-old mayor of Kathmandu, as their new leader. He is widely believed to have played an important role during the uprising. In a social media post addressed to “Gen Z and all Nepalese” after the protests, he said Nepal was taking the next steps towards a “golden future”. He asked people to be patient and expressed support for Sushila Karki, the former chief justice of the supreme court who took over as head of the interim government on September 12. “I want to respect your understanding, discretion and unity wholeheartedly. This shows how mature you all are,” he said.

Many people, however, want to see Shah at the helm. In Thamel, a commercial neighbourhood in Kathmandu, 18-year-old Mohammad Tahir Akhtar, who works at a jewellery shop, says there is no leader better than Shah: he is dynamic, capable, educated and genuinely concerned about the people. Twenty-year-old Brijesh from Lalitpur in central Nepal says Shah is supported by everyone because, as mayor, he has cleaned the capital, widened roads, repaired heritage sites and has done everything in his power. “Our parents’ generation also likes him and thinks he might be a better option for the position,” says Brijesh.

Shah was not the only key figure during the uprising. Sudan Gurung, who heads Hami Nepal, a volunteer group formed after the 2015 earthquake, ran an extensive campaign among its more than a lakh members using Discord, Instagram and other social platforms to spread rebellion, which reached across the country and spawned several independent groups with a similar anti-corruption agenda. Gurung, however, lacks wider support as a political figure. “Hami Nepal is one of the biggest groups that played a role, but it is not recognised as a Gen Z group. The group has lost its essence after the regime change,” says 16-year-old student Siddharth Govinda.

The large online gatherings of these groups have led the new generation to build consensus on many issues. One key change expected in the upcoming elections is that more young people are likely to register as voters and exercise their franchise in favour of preferred candidates. The prevailing sentiment in Kathmandu is that if more than a million extra youth votes are cast, it could shift Nepal’s political balance.

For now, the interim government led by Karki seems to have calmed public anger, but the system of governance remains weak and operates with impaired infrastructure. Many officials are unable to function properly as in several key departments data have disappeared, records are missing and government vehicles are unusable. Clearly, the revolution has its costs. “We don’t have proper desks, chairs or laptops to complete our assignments,” says a mid-level bureaucrat. “It is almost impossible to be productive under these conditions.”

But many protesters think of what happened as a necessary evil. “Politicians and bureaucrats have been abusing power, so we all came out and burnt down the stages of dishonesty,” says Deepak Jha, a core member of Hami Nepal. Jha says he was part of a group that attacked the parliament. Nepalis have long despised the politico-bureaucratic class. The agreement to have an interim government under Karki was a hasty measure to prevent further disorder.

The loss of infrastructure has been huge. Sanit Anand, who heads a real estate group, says public and private losses could exceed $1.5 billion, affecting thousands of jobs across retail, hospitality and other services. “The government will struggle with its limited manpower, funding and logistics. Each destroyed office and vehicle will reduce both economic activity and community recovery in its own way.”

The Karki administration is trying to show that the political system is credible. It has been particular in its appointments of ministers. Kul Man Ghising, the former managing director of the Nepal Electricity Authority who became famous by ending the country’s chronic load-shedding, has been appointed minister of energy. Om Prakash Aryal, legal adviser to Balendra Shah, will head the ministry of home affairs and the ministry of law.

The interim government’s immediate focus will be to heal the scars of maladministration and redirect officials so they serve the public better. Before the uprising, accountability had collapsed: officials passed benefits among themselves and shirked responsibility towards ordinary people. Even hospital staff were arrogant and dismissed patients’ concerns. “I recently went to government-run Kanti Children’s Hospital in Kathmandu when my two-month-old baby girl fell ill and needed an ICU bed,” says 40-year-old Manoj Yatra. “Despite ICUs being available, they did not give us one. They told us to go to another hospital.” Yatra says there is a way to get an ICU bed, but one must know someone powerful to get it.

According to Puspa Raj Sapkota, a former senior manager of the Agricultural Development Bank of Nepal, the system collapsed because political parties hijacked it. “Middlemen exercised vast power and played central roles in influencing bureaucrats, politicians and technocrats to secure postings and appointments. They were a separate group of powerful people living off the turmoil of the state.”

Flawed political leadership and bad governance have struck at the core of the state machinery and economy. Unmet expectations, joblessness and displacement have created an undercurrent of hopelessness among new graduates. “Many hotels in Nepal are hiring but it is difficult to find staff as most young people prefer to go abroad,” says Alishah Prasai, 24, who studied hotel management in the United States. “The salaries are low.”

Bir Bahadur Mahto, who heads a research centre in Kathmandu, says more than 30 per cent of Nepal’s population works abroad. That is also one reason why the social media ban caused so much uproar as many use it to stay in touch with family and friends abroad and to earn income.

The uprising appears to have brought change on several fronts. It has created an assertive generation, proud to have toppled a government, and it has helped form political networks capable of influencing government. The new government is in frequent dialogue with young people and their formations.

Yet, it will not be easy for the young revolutionaries to stay united and drive the agenda forward. The various power elites still remain entrenched and are unlikely to go away quietly. Even as Gen Z groups led the revolution, mainstream opposition parties and those sympathetic to the monarchy played key roles in destroying government property to overthrow the Oli-led government. Critics say the roles of the police and the army remain murky as they failed to contain the situation properly. “One policeman came into the Civil Hospital in Kathmandu and threw a tear gas canister inside, which created more anger against the police,” said a man tending to an injured protester. A police inspector told THE WEEK that they were unofficially told to protect themselves, so they withdrew from the scene. “We went and stayed with our civilian friends.”

The army was viewed by some as wanting reinstatement of the monarchy, which was abolished in 2008. There are also questions about why the army failed to stabilise the situation and why it did not mobilise for two days as the country’s important institutions were targeted. “The army doesn’t want to operate based on the mood and will of the people. They are trained to be strategic and do not want to follow the whims of unprofessional elected government,” says a political analyst based in Kathmandu. “They wanted to share power with the monarchy and therefore they, up until the end, stayed close to the monarchy.” However, insiders say President Ram Chandra Poudel refused to resign, which preserved one element of democratic structure despite the fall of the government. Opposition parties, too, saw an opportunity to bring down the Oli government when protests broke out, and they went on targeting key infrastructure and institutions. “There were people from cadres of opposition, monarchy sympathisers and others who sort of hijacked the protests and targeted government buildings,” said a leader from one Gen Z group.

Representatives of eight major political parties have issued a joint statement calling the interim government unconstitutional. The parties remain intact and presidents of the three ruling parties are yet to resign. Many Gen Z leaders worry that once normalcy returns, second-tier politicians from those same parties will manoeuvre back into power, using entrenched networks to reclaim constitutional roles. Young activists warn that unless Gen Z is united, it will be difficult to succeed in upcoming elections.

Vijay Kant Karna, former Nepal ambassador to Denmark and chairman of the Centre for Social Innovation and Foreign Policy, says the government must address corruption decisively and probe why such a large number of people were killed. “Who ordered the action and under what circumstances those orders were given? For the upcoming elections, ensuring security and maintaining law and order is the foremost priority. The second step is rehabilitation of damaged government buildings, followed by restoring private sector infrastructure to create public confidence in the electoral process,” says Karna. “These foundations need to be strengthened. Equally important is the establishment of an independent commission to investigate corruption cases.”

Gen Z, being an unorganised force, momentarily united around the country’s most urgent issue of anti-corruption and acted collectively. Now their immediate goal having been partially met, groups have splintered into discordant voices, their anger subsiding without a clear agenda for the future. Jasmine Ojha, a former youth leader of Oli’s CPN (UM-L), who has been long involved with Gen Z groups, says efforts are underway to bring all those groups together so they can form an unambiguous agenda for the country’s future. Interestingly, many Gen Z leaders now want to be part of government. “Some of them have sent a letter to the army, president and prime minister to ensure their representation in the ministries,” says Ojha. “Different Gen Z groups want different things although most of them are keen on preserving democracy and the constitution.”