Brief | Nepal's Gen Z Revolution

The cost of controlling online expression

Written by Giulio Draghetti and Anaïs Jezequel Perez

Nepal's Parliament - Credit: Prabin Ranabhat/AFP via Getty Images

The institution of the presidency in Nepal was originally conceived as a safeguard against the volatility of coalition politics. Since the abolition of the monarchy in 2008, the office has carried symbolic weight as a stabilising force for Nepal’s democracy, meant to stand above the day-to-day deals and rivalries of party politics. Yet under President Ram Chandra Paudel, elected in 2023, that symbolic authority has begun to erode. Paudel himself has not been the direct target of corruption charges, but his reluctance to challenge corruption within his political circle has weakened the authority of the office. The indictment of former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal in June 2025, over allegations of misusing public land in a deal with the Indian company Patanjali Yogpeeth, reinforced the perception that accountability in Nepal is uneven, with senior politicians less likely to face legal consequences than ordinary citizens. Anti-corruption efforts often start with a strong rhetoric, but they tend to stall in the courts or fade as governments change, leaving a cycle of disappointment that deepens public mistrust of democratic institutions.

It was in this environment that the government’s decision to ban social media platforms provoked such a strong reaction. In September 2025, authorities ordered the suspension of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and more than twenty other services. The move was justified on the grounds of non-compliance with new regulatory requirements and concerns about misinformation and online abuse. For many citizens, particularly Gen Z, already disillusioned by corruption, nepotism, and limited economic opportunities, the ban was interpreted not as a regulation but as an effort to suppress political expression. Journalist Ramyata Limbu explained that the demonstrations were not sudden but the outcome of long-lasting discontent: “The younger generation, GenZ, has been very disillusioned…when they decided to have a peaceful protest against the social media ban, corruption was the trigger”. Rather than a cause in its own right, the ban became the trigger that converted years of frustration into collective political action.

An aerial view shows demonstrators gathered outside Nepal’s Parliament. Credit: Prabin Ranabhat/AFP via Getty Images

The manifestations that followed were not the orderly marches of an established opposition. They felt as if no one were in charge. There were, to be precise, many people in charge for a few minutes at a time: neighborhood organizers drawing crowds to choke points, students relaying police movements by motorbike, volunteers ferrying the injured to clinics when ambulances hesitated at barricades. The state found an answer in the only instrument it still trusted. Troops patrolled intersections, armored vehicles idled at government gates, and curfews settled over city districts like a winter fog. For a day or two, the army was “effectively in charge,” a fact that brought a paradox into view: the republic could only be saved by a show of force that tested its own civilian premises.

Then, in a twist that felt inevitable, an interim prime minister emerged who owed nothing to party machines. Sushila Karki, a former chief justice remembered for exacting anti-corruption judgments, took the oath while smoke still smudged the skyline. The president dissolved parliament and set elections for March 5, 2026. Karki’s appointment, Nepal’s first woman to lead a government, was neither a triumph of feminist symbolism alone nor a technocratic stopgap. It was the movement’s wager that personal probity could serve as a bridge between the fury of the street and the caution of institutions. Whether that bridge holds will determine whether this week becomes an inflection point or only an episode. 

Protesters deface a photograph of Nepal’s former prime minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli at the Singha Durbar, on September 9, 2025. Credit: AP/Niranjan Shresta

What makes these protests feel new is less the repertoire of tactics than the circuitry of decision. The blackout produced its own workaround. Young organizers, tethered to one another by Discord servers, moved between encrypted chats and town squares with unusual agility. They polled, drafted, amended, and disseminated a minimum program in hours, demanding resignations from a discredited cabinet and visible accountability for the protest deaths. This is not quite leaderless politics, but politics whose leadership is iterative and rotating.

There are, of course, dangers ahead that no rhetoric can resolve. Karki’s elevation shores up the executive on an emergency footing, but it also stretches a constitution that was not designed for such improvisation. The longer the interim lasts, the easier it will be for losers-in-waiting to claim that forms have been violated and must be restored by any means necessary. The army, admired by much of the public and momentarily cast as arbiter, must now master the discipline of withdrawal. And the young, whose genius for coordination powered the revolution, must learn the slower art of incorporation, which means writing rules that constrain themselves once in office. The charismatic refusal to be represented has toppled a prime minister. It cannot by itself build a cabinet.

A fire burns inside the Parliament complex during a protest. Credit: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

Still, if Nepal’s week of fire has a lesson for readers watching from other democracies that have drifted into cynicism, it is that a politics of restoration can sometimes masquerade as revolt. The students who sprinted past the barricades were not asking to overturn the social contract; they were asking that a contract exist again, legible and binding on the ruling class. The result will not be a utopia, but it might be a republic in working order. The ultimate fate of Nepal’s revolution will be decided in the coming months, far from the cameras that loved the flames. The measure will be tactile and boring and profoundly democratic. It is, however, striking that the most hopeful document to emerge this week was not a manifesto but a calendar invitation to vote on time, and that the most radical appointment was a judge. If that seems insufficiently romantic, that may be the point. Revolutions that last tend to make peace with sobriety. Nepal has earned the chance to try.

A demonstrator holding Nepal's flag celebrates at the Singha Durbar office complex that houses the Prime Minister's office and other ministries after storming it. Credit: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Bibliography:

Sharma, G. and Ahmed, A. (2025) ‘Former chief justice Karki named Nepal’s first female PM after violent unrest’, Reuters, 12 September. 

Sharme, G. (2025) ‘Death toll from Nepal’s anti-corruption protests raised to 72’, Reuters, 14 September.

Gurubacharya, B. (2025) ‘Nepal’s new prime minister urges calm after deadly protests’, AP News, 14 September. 

Al Jazeera Podcasts (2025) ‘The Take: Why is Gen Z protesting in Nepal?’, Al Jazeera, Podcast episode, 11 September. 

Kharel, S. (2025) ‘Lessons from Nepal on the High Cost of Controlling Online Expression’, Tech Policy Press, 12 September. 

Mishra, R. (2025) ‘Amended anti-corruption law holds Nepali civil servants accountable for inaction’, The Kathmandu Post, 12 April.

Schipani, A. (2025) ‘The GenZ revolution spreading in Asia’, The Financial Times, 15 September.