DHAKA
The wave of people’s uprisings across South Asia, overthrowing the regimes in Sri Lanka Bangladesh and Nepal, transcends simple explanations of economic crises or governance failures. These are not isolated events, but symptoms of deep-seated structural fault lines: chronic youth unemployment, systemic discrimination and a near-total lack of social protection have converged with oligarchic state capture, exposing a fundamental crisis of state-building in South Asia.
What defines these movements is their sense of purpose. Contrary to the persistent labelling of Gen Z as a “post-ideological” or “post-political” generation, they stand at the forefront, like their predecessors, articulating voices for change. Their mobilisation is reinforced by the massive participation of the working class, mired in a deepening cost-of-living crisis.
The cycle of popular uprisings demonstrates the resilience of people against unmet promises. In Nepal, there is a long history of Jana Andolan. The party-less panchayat system was opposed through major mass movement in the 1990s, and the country witnessed an armed rebellion led by the Maoists from 1996 until 2006. Despite becoming a republic, more than 13 governments have changed between 2008 and 2024, inflicting instability on the lives of ordinary people.
The Aragalaya represents a collective struggle for democratic renewal, accountability and a rejection of callous governance in Sri Lanka. The island nation is also haunted by memories of decades-long civil war. In Bangladesh, history is also marked by popular uprisings, notably, the uprising of 1969, leading to the eventual liberation war in 1971. In 1991, a dictatorship was toppled through mass uprising, and in 2024, an oligarchic regime, which bore no resemblance to an elected government, was overthrown.
The central promise of the state has been broken. Captured by entrenched quarters, it has consistently been unable to uphold rights, provide equitable opportunities, enforce social protection and deliver justice. Consequently, the state is perceived as extractive rather than enabling, while the pledged transformation remains perpetually on the back burner. Citizenship has become hollow. The uprisings are, therefore, not spontaneous eruptions but informed responses to systemic exclusion.
The evidence of a missing future is stark. In Bangladesh, an alarming youth unemployment rate of 7.2 per cent, was affecting about 1.94 million people aged 15–29. Crucially, 31.5 per cent of these unemployed youth hold tertiary degrees, a blunt indicator of a ruptured system that educates its young but cannot employ them. This failure is gendered: female youth, particularly in urban areas, are disproportionately affected, while rural youth are often confined to precarious agricultural or informal work. These statistics should be interpreted with caution, as official definitions may mask the true extent of unemployment.
Sri Lanka mirrors these challenges. Although the official national unemployment rate is 3.8 per cent, the real youth unemployment sits at nearly 14 per cent, and underemployment is rampant, with many facing reduced pay and hours.
Nepal’s situation is dire, with youth unemployment consistently exceeding 20 per cent. The most telling symptom is the massive outward migration of nearly seven lakh youth in a single ten-month period. This exodus, which generates remittances constituting nearly a quarter of GDP, is an indictment of national labour policies and reinforces social and economic disparities.
A correlation exists between high unemployment, the severity of uprisings and their outcomes. For example, the Cronulla riot in Australia on December 4, 2005, was short-lived as the unemployment rate in Australia was 5.1 per cent at the time. But in France in 2005, the unrest lasted for days, eventually forcing the government to declare a state of emergency. The French national unemployment rate stood at around 10 per cent, while the rate for workers under 25 was more than twice, at about 23 per cent.
The problem is largely a fundamental flaw in the development strategies pursued, marked by a profound mismatch between the aspirations of an educated generation and an economy ruled by patronage and discrimination in South Asia.
An academic degree is no longer a signal or a ticket to a job. In Sri Lanka, holders of G.C.E. A/L (General Certificate of Education Advanced level, considered equivalent to the UK’s A levels) qualification find it extremely difficult to get jobs. In Bangladesh, graduates are forced into informal, underpaid lines of work. This frustration is defined by discrimination in Nepal, resulting in perpetuation of intergenerational poverty. Gendered barriers perpetuate women entering the workforce in unprotected employment. The predicament is not just unemployment, but built upon by stagnant wages, poor conditions and improper distribution of hours.
The inequality is widening. Sri Lanka’s working-class is forced to serve for meagre wages in sectors like agriculture and construction, obstructing to keep up pace with living costs. This is evident from the Gini index of 0.45, with the top 1 per cent owning 31 per cent of total personal wealth. In Nepal, too, the inequality is severe, with a Gini coefficient of 0.58 and the richest 20 per cent of households controlling 56 per cent of total wealth, hindering social mobility and anchoring poverty. In Bangladesh, the top 5 per cent of households account for over 30 per cent of national income, a disparity manifested by a vast informal sector, without security or protection. The Gini coefficient climbed from 0.334 in 2022 to 0.436 in 2025, placing Bangladesh among the most unequal societies, where wealth inequality is worse than the income inequality.
The state has been an active agent in arming inequalities, which are not accidental but the deliberate outcome of institutional asymmetries. It functions not as an arbiter, but as a vehicle for power consolidation by a powerful minority, leaving the majority behind.
There has been a political commodification of the state. Such commodification subjects governance to patronage networks, eroding institutional integrity and public trust. In Bangladesh, political patronage ensures state resources, appointments and contracts are allocated to loyalists, creating a system of clientelism to cling on to power. In Sri Lanka, the patronage distribution nexus extends to resource extraction, where political patrons control licences for activities like sand mining, enriching allies while causing ecological degradation and dispossessing local communities. In Nepal, patronage dynamics infect the bureaucracy and media, controlling public narratives and stifling dissent. Across the region, the result is the same—a state that is extractive.
The uprisings in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal are not merely about toppling a single leader or a party(ies). These are profound collective claims for a state that serves its citizens, instead of breeding oligarchic domination and primitive accumulation.
The youth are not apathetic. Their demands for equitable education, real job creation, an end to discrimination and reconfiguration of political power are grounded in lived experience. The participation of the working class provides not just numbers, but a powerful coalition with shared stakes in reform of the broken social contract, demanding a redefined citizenship.
THE TRIGGERS
SRI LANKA
◆ Economic crisis
◆ Rajapaksa dynastic rule
◆ Demand for structural reforms and a new constitution
BANGLADESH
◆ Quota system for government jobs
◆ Economic discontent (unemployment & inflation)
◆ Political discontent & authoritarianism
NEPAL
◆ Corruption and elite nepotism
◆ Economic discontent and youth unemployment
◆ Demand for structural reform and good governance