Nepal’s Protests are About Social Injustices, Not Social Media

September 23, 2025

| Rojan Joshi | Jae Brieffies |

September 2025 saw one of Nepal’s most significant political shifts since the country emerged from civil war in 2006. What began as a peaceful protest by Generation Z against corruption and social media censorship escalated after a heavy-handed government response, culminating in regime change.

Young people are significant stakeholders in Nepal, with 56 per cent of the population below the age of 30. An inability to generate large scale employment has pushed youth joblessness above 20 per cent, compelling many to seek work abroad. The economy is kept afloat by remittances worth US$14 billion in 2023–24, more than a third of GDP. Most of this finances day-to-day consumption rather than investments in human capital or infrastructure, keeping Nepal trapped in a low-growth equilibrium.

Parallel to the daily realities of ordinary Nepalis runs a political regime built on rent-seeking and corruption. The merry-go-round of KP Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Pushpa Kamal Dahal — who between them have held the prime ministership continuously for a decade across six changes of leadership — epitomises this concentration of power and failure to deliver on meaningful reform. Oli’s party recently endorsed a proposal to remove two-term limits and the 70-year age ceiling on top internal leadership positions, opening the door for the 74-year-old to continue in his role.

The latest manifestation of popular discontent is the ‘nepo babies’ trend, inspired by similar movements in Indonesia and the Philippines. In the weeks leading up to 8 September, young Nepalis, languishing in bleak conditions, expressed their frustration on social media at the children of political elites flaunting their wealth online.

Since November 2023, the government had issued five notices requiring foreign-owned social media platforms to register in the country, to little avail. In August 2025, a Supreme Court order compelled the government to set a final seven day deadline. When companies failed to comply, the government blocked access to 26 platforms. 72.8 per cent of adults use social media, for everything from contacting overseas family members to operating online businesses. In light of the ‘nepo babies’ trend, the ban was further seen as an attempt to silence dissent.

On the morning of 8 September, thousands of young Nepalis took to the streets protesting corruption, nepotism and the stripping of their rights to communication. Police responded to attempts by protestors to breach the gates of parliament with disproportionate brutality, firing bullets and releasing tear gas on protestors and hospital staff.

Such violence hits at the heart of unresolved grievances regarding civil war-era impunity for state crimes against civilians. The Comprehensive Peace Accord which concluded the civil war in 2006 mandated the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate serious human rights violations. But the Commission was first constituted in 2014 and has been crippled by political interference and legal issues ever since. Of the over 78,000 formal complaints of civil war-era human rights violations received over its 11-year life span, none have been resolved. Absent a legitimate reckoning, past crimes have blurred into the present, their wounds festering under an imperious political class.

Overnight, the Home Minister stepped down. The government offered a cosmetic solution by lifting the social media ban and announcing compensation for those killed and wounded, and imposed a curfew across major cities. But grief had already metabolised into fresh anger. In defiance of curfews, protestors took to the streets vandalising and burning politicians’ residences. Some politicians were even publicly beaten.

By the afternoon of 9 September, Oli had resigned and fled. Jubilant protestors claimed victory, having toppled an entrenched government in fewer than 36 hours. But the mood changed as the evening dragged on. The Parliament, Supreme Court and government offices in Singha Durbar were breached and engulfed in flames. Protest organisers implored people to return home, with those left on the street increasingly unassociated with Gen Z. Order was largely restored later that night when, at last, the president called in the army. As of 21 September, the death toll sits at 74, with thousands more injured.

In a popular, decentralised movement, distinguishing between legitimate action and infiltration is an intractable task. Gen Z clearly does not have a monopoly on public discontent. Yet drawing a line around the ‘valid’ reactions of Gen Z to the events of the previous day becomes a neat way to compartmentalise responses to police brutality as distinct from larger grievances surrounding widespread corruption and deprivation. Doing so enables establishment elites to rationalise violence in the name of the former and dismiss the latter as ‘opportunism’ or ‘infiltration’, preserving the structural conditions under which they govern.

Fixating on delineations between legitimate and illegitimate individual acts of violent protest also obfuscates analogous acts of state-sponsored structural violence against an entire populace. Public sector corruption, estimated to have cost Nepal up to US$3.3 billion dollars in 2014, itself represents a form of networked and sanctioned ‘looting’ of public resources to which the political class has repeatedly turned a blind eye.

Further complicating legitimacy is the lack of clear governance structures or end goals among Gen Z organisers, who were unexpectedly thrust into negotiations with the president and army chief. Protestors selected their representative for talks via a poll on Discord, with candidates reflecting backlash against the highly partisan status quo. Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was ultimately nominated by Gen Z and later formally appointed as prime minister of the interim government.

Parliament was subsequently dissolved and an election set for 5 March 2026. Whatever happens next must go beyond satisfying the punitive instinct so many Nepalis feel. The state must materially improve the lives of citizens. Optimism about the potential for socioeconomic mobility is once again rising, but switching out top leadership is no guarantee of transformative change. Even if corruption is eliminated, Nepal’s economic prospects are constrained by its geographic and geopolitical position as a landlocked, mountainous country sandwiched between two competing giants in India and China.

The immediate task now is for Gen Z to build a strong electoral platform ahead of the vote in March. In the current political vacuum, there are plenty of opportunistic actors from established parties charting out a path back to power, but also plentiful public frustration which can be mobilised in favour of progressive reform-minded candidates — if Gen Z can seize the moment. If young people aspire to structural political changes, such as through constitutional amendments, they must win significantly in the forthcoming elections.

First published on East Asia Forum. https://doi.org/10.59425/eabc.1758492000

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