Nepal’s Gen Z Movement Needs Deeper Considerations

Now that the dust has settled over the streets of Kathmandu, we could dispassionately ponder over what has been achieved by the Gen Z movement. Thousands of young people, most of them born after the People’s War and the 2006 democratic transition, poured into the streets to protest corruption, censorship, and authoritarian drift. This youth-led uprising gained international headlines for its unprecedented digital mobilisation and its ability to force the resignation of Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli. For a brief moment, Kathmandu’s streets seemed to echo with the possibility of a generational shift in Nepali politics.

Yet as the protests subsided and the interim government assumed charge, unsettling questions loomed large: What had truly changed? Was the removal of a single leader enough to upend a political order steeped in corruption and patronage? More crucially, did the movement itself possess a clear vision beyond the cathartic release of anger against a decrepit system? These questions matter all the more given the steep costs already borne: Nearly two dozen young lives were lost, hundreds were injured or arrested, families were devastated and huge public property was damaged. The economy, already battered by unemployment and out-migration, suffered further disruption. Against these costs, the returns look meagre. A prime minister resigned, but another politician from the same mould will replace him. Social media bans were reversed, but the state still retains its appetite for control. Youth felt empowered, but without institutional anchors, that empowerment risks dissipating into nostalgia rather than policy.

And the issue is not confined to Nepal, though it stands out as a recent land of revolutions; it speaks to a wider global pattern, where popular movements, despite their sacrifices, have repeatedly suffered defeat at the hands of entrenched ruling classes.

The Hollow Core

This is not to demean the movement or dismiss it’s impact. It compelled the resignation of Oli, a leader notorious for authoritarian tendencies, corruption scandals, hideous nepotism and populist bluster. That achievement alone distinguishes it from countless smaller protests in South Asia that fail to budge entrenched rulers. It forced the government to lift its sweeping and malafide ban on over two dozen social media platforms, Given how central digital platforms are to communication, business, and political expression, this rollback was also a significant victory. The protests showcased a new form of political mobilisation: decentralized, digitally coordinated, and largely leaderless. Youth activists used Discord servers, livestreams, and encrypted messaging to organise actions that could not easily be predicted or suppressed by the state. This style of protest was a stark contrast to the party-led marches of Nepal’s past. And, finally, the protests ignited a new sense of civic agency among Nepal’s youth. A generation often dismissed as apolitical or apathetic demonstrated that it was willing to risk arrest, injury, and even death for its convictions. In a country plagued by mass out-migration and youth disillusionment, this itself was a symbolic achievement.

Yet when one moves beyond the surface, the limitations become glaring. Despite the noise, the movement left the fundamental structures of power intact. The same set of political parties—the Nepali Congress, the UML, the Maoists—continue to dominate, reshuffling among themselves but never ceding ground to new actors. Corruption, nepotism, and elite capture remain pervasive.

The protesters themselves were unclear about their ultimate goals. Unlike the 1990 People’s Movement, which demanded constitutional monarchy and democracy, or the 2006 Jana Andolan, which pressed for republicanism, federalism, and inclusion, the Gen Z uprising lacked a coherent manifesto. Its slogans—“No more corruption,” “Give us jobs,” “End censorship”—were morally compelling but politically diffuse, unable to crystallise into a programme for systemic transformation. The irony was stark: most political parties in Nepal continue to flaunt communist symbols and rhetoric even as they thrive on corruption, clientelism, and nepotism. What was urgently needed was not just a moral outcry but a fundamental interrogation of the constitutional and institutional mechanisms meant to ensure accountability and curb abuse of power.

Moreover, the interim government that succeeded Oli offered little promise of real change. Led by Sushila Karki, a respected former Chief Justice, it was projected as a neutral caretaker administration. Yet its composition remained firmly anchored in the old elite networks, with no direct representation of the protesters who had ignited the uprising. This disconnect exposed the movement’s deeper weakness—its inability to translate street energy into institutional form or sustained political momentum.

A Country of Revolutions without Transformation

The irony of the Gen Z uprising is stark when set against Nepal's revolutionary past. The decade-long Maoist People’s War (1996–2006) claimed nearly 17,000 lives and promised to uproot feudalism, abolish monarchy, and build an egalitarian republic. Nepal did abolish the monarchy and adopt a new constitution, but the deeper promises—land reform, caste annihilation, and social equality—remained unrealised. What emerged instead was the same bourgeois-liberal democracy, hollow and corrupt.

Given such a legacy, one might expect the new generation to dream as radically. Yet the Gen Z protests exposed a poverty of imagination. Digitally fluent but politically shallow, they sought better governance within the very framework that sustains oppression. Where Maoists once envisioned “People’s Democracy,” Gen Z demanded honest politicians and unfettered TikTok.

That a society once waged war for revolution now struggles to conceive even modest reform reflects the exhaustion of ideological politics. The Maoists themselves, now absorbed into the corrupt mainstream, discredited radical imagination. Disillusioned with ideology, the youth turned to pragmatism—but pragmatism without vision only reproduces the order it resists.

Lessons from Other Youth Uprisings

Nepal’s Gen Z uprising is part of a global pattern. Over the past two decades, youth-led movements—from the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and Chile’s student protests—have erupted through digital networks, toppling leaders and shaking regimes. Closer home, Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (2022) forced the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, while Bangladesh has seen recurring student mobilisations against corruption and authoritarianism. Yet, despite their fervour, few of these upheavals produced radical change. Individuals were displaced, but structures of corruption, patronage, and inequality endured. The Arab Spring, despite its initial triumphs, largely gave way to authoritarian retrenchment or civil war. Hong Kong’s movement mobilised millions but was crushed by Beijing’s security apparatus. Chile’s students did achieve constitutional reform, but even that has stumbled in implementation.

Digital-age movements excel at mobilisation but falter at institutionalisation. Their leaderless, decentralised nature makes them agile yet fragile—winning moments but losing the long game. Nepal’s Gen Z protests fit this pattern almost too perfectly.

What they reveal most starkly is the gap between anger and vision. Anger at corruption, censorship, and unemployment was abundant; vision was absent. A movement cannot live on outrage alone—it needs direction. Thus, while the parties sacrificed Oli as a scapegoat, the old order remained intact. The interim government served as a safety valve, releasing pressure without change, and the youth—lacking organisation and clarity—were swiftly sidelined once the moment passed.

Bounded Vision of People's Democracy

At the core of it all lies the model of bourgeois liberal democracy, which promises representation, rights, and periodic elections. Yet this performative model conceals the absence of real power in the hands of the people. Decision-making remains concentrated among elites structurally tied to capital through campaign financing, lobbying, and the revolving doors between corporations and the state.

This is why C. Wright Mills’ classic conception of the power elite remains as relevant as ever: the nexus of state, military, and corporate interests ensures that electoral outcomes rarely alter the direction of society. As Marx and Engels observed in The Communist Manifesto, the modern state is “but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie". The institutional apparatus—parliament, judiciary, and bureaucracy—functions less as an arena of popular sovereignty than as a mechanism for reproducing capitalist social relations.

The model is structurally corrupt, not because of individual moral failings, but because of its class foundations. Liberal democracy’s logic is one of preservation rather than transformation. Its constitutional frameworks are designed to safeguard property, contract, and the market order. The much-celebrated “checks and balances” that appear as safeguards of liberty are, in practice, barriers against revolutionary rupture.

Democracy under capitalism is always circumscribed by property relations, ensuring that “freedom” remains the freedom to exploit and accumulate. Proletarian or subaltern energies are tolerated only within limits; once they threaten systemic stability, they are criminalised or violently repressed—as seen in the brutal state responses to the uprisings in Egypt (2013), the Occupy encampments (2011), and India’s anti-CAA protests (2020).

Absence of Revolutionary Horizon

The deeper question is why modern movements fail. Most mobilise around specific grievances—corruption, police violence, authoritarian overreach, or ecological collapse—but seldom articulate a coherent alternative to the existing order. Lacking a revolutionary horizon, their energies dissipate into reforms or symbolic victories. The Arab Spring toppled rulers but preserved state structures, enabling military restoration (Egypt), sectarian wars (Syria, Yemen), or fragile compromise (Tunisia). Occupy Wall Street exposed the excesses of finance capital yet lacked the organisation to turn critique into sustained politics.

Fragmentation along identity lines further weakens transformative potential. Struggles around race, caste, gender, or ecology are vital, yet the neoliberal state deftly absorbs them into “recognition politics” that leave capitalist accumulation untouched. As Nancy Fraser notes, the “progressive neoliberal bloc” marries symbolic inclusion with material exclusion. India’s farmers’ movement won repeal of farm laws but not the larger battle against agrarian corporatisation; Nepal’s Gen Z protests voiced discontent but lacked a programmatic vision for restructuring the state.

Bourgeois democracy’s genius lies in co-optation. Gramsci’s notion of hegemony captures how ruling classes manufacture consent through culture, institutions, and ideology—masking repression as governance. Protests are tolerated, even celebrated, as proof of democracy’s vitality, only to be neutralised through managed reforms. Thus, each cycle of dissent ends not in rupture but in the re-legitimation of the system: elections are called, commissions appointed, promises made—while the structural contradictions remain untouched.

Conclusion: The Missed Moment

Nepal’s Gen Z uprising will be remembered as a dazzling surge of youth energy—amplified by digital networks and moral outrage—but also as a missed moment. Despite its scale, it produced neither a new vision nor enduring leadership. This failure mirrors a wider global crisis of political imagination, where youth can resist but seldom reimagine. In a land once defined by revolutions, the contrast is stark: the Maoists dared the impossible; Gen Z could not demand even the possible.

Unless future movements bridge the gulf between anger and vision—translating dissent into organisation and program—the cycle will persist: eruptions, reforms at the margins, and the restoration of the same order. For now, the Gen Z moment endures as both warning and lesson—energy without vision is a flare: brilliant, brief, and leaving the night unchanged.