Nepal has experienced an unprecedented political upheaval, as the country’s Generation Z, armed with anger over corruption, overthrew the government in less than 48 hours. However, this historic victory came at a heavy price, with 72 people dead and untold damage. What sparked the outbreak of violence, and how did the backlash against the nepo babies of politics change the country’s history?
Nepal’s youth (Generation Ζ) took to the streets, toppled a government, and changed the country’s political history. However, their victory came at a price of trauma, anger, and destruction, leaving behind dead and untold material damage. Their revolution is relevant far beyond the country’s geographical borders.
The movement, which was born on social media among the country’s Gen Z, has grown into a devastating uprising that has challenged the entire political system.
With 72 people dead, last week’s protests were the deadliest in decades for Nepal.
Government buildings, political residences and luxury hotels, including the Hilton, which opened in July 2024, have been torched, vandalized and looted. The wife of a former prime minister is fighting for her life after their home was set on fire.
Plutocracy’s Nepo Babies Under Fire
Two days before the September 8 protests, 24-year-old environmental activist Tanuja Pandey posted a video of a mining operation in Chure, one of the region’s most fragile mountain ranges.
“Nepal’s resources should belong to the people, not to politicians’ private companies,” she wrote, calling on her generation to “protest against corruption and the misuse of our national wealth.”
Like many youth movements in Asia, Nepal’s Gen Z protests began without a formal leader to lead the movement. For months, anger had been building over the nepo babies of politics, the children of the country’s powerful who flaunted their wealth on social media.
One of the photos that went viral was of Soghat Thapa, the son of a provincial minister, posing next to a Christmas tree made of luxury brand boxes such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci.
He responded that this was “unfair misinformation” and that his father “returned every rupee he earned from public service to the community.”
For Tanuja Pandey, the final straw was a video that contrasted the life of a political family with that of a young Nepali man forced to migrate to find work in a Gulf country.
“It’s painful to see, especially knowing that even educated young people are forced to leave the country because the wages here are far below the threshold of a decent living,” says the woman, who comes from a middle-class family and whose sister was forced to emigrate to Australia to be able to cover the costs of her treatment for a brain tumor.
Fist @genz.nepal
At 25, Pandey became the face of Nepal’s Gen Z uprising, an uprising that led to the fall of the government, at a heavy, devastating cost.
The young lawyer and climate activist, who has suddenly found herself in the international spotlight, says her fame is “embarrassing” and “disturbing.”
Tanuja Pandey, who celebrated her 25th birthday on September 15, is now one of the most recognizable names among Nepal’s Gen Z, along with Rakshaya Bam, Sudan Gurung, Balen Sa and others.
The anti-corruption movement they launched led to the resignation of Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli and President Ram Chandra Pandit, but the peaceful demonstration on September 8th turned into violent clashes, as, as the organizers themselves complain, “rioters and politicians” infiltrated it.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOSSBAjEpmh/?utm_source=ig_embed
Pandey says she feels very strange about the international media attention her name has received. “Honestly, this attention makes me feel a little uncomfortable,” she admits. The young activist emphasizes that she feels like her every move is being watched and judged, which is crushing.
“In addition, I constantly hear rumors about me, completely fabricated, even wild conspiracy theories. People associate me with groups or agendas that I have nothing to do with, which is infuriating. But the most immoral thing is that, although the narrative should be about Nepal and justice for the young lives that we lost, it was turned against the protesters. It is wrong when attention is diverted from the real cause and the great struggle.”
The first female prime minister
Nepal is tentatively returning to normality, with former Supreme Court chief justice and anti-corruption crusader Sushila Karki as interim prime minister, the most popular choice among Gen Z protesters, according to their Discord chats.
Karki, the first woman to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, became the country’s first female prime minister and is expected to expand her cabinet and lead the country until elections in early 2026.
With Karki at the helm, the government has declared the students killed in the protests martyrs and offered their families compensation of about 7,000 euros. Efforts are also being made to repair or rebuild buildings destroyed by the arson attacks.
Digital Call Strictly for Gen Z
Tanuza Pandey describes the initial online campaign as “naming and shaming” against nepo babies, the children of powerful politicians who flaunt their disproportionate wealth on social media.
The government then banned most platforms, such as Facebook and TikTok, that young people were using for their campaigns. Pandey’s Instagram video, in which she passionately speaks about the exploitation of Nepal’s natural resources, immediately went viral.
“Democracy should be inclusive… it should not benefit only a specific group. Democracy should not be limited to the pages of the Constitution, but should improve the lives of every citizen. “1-2% of the people in Nepal enjoy a better life and the rest struggle to survive in desperate conditions,” she argued, concluding that “our struggle is against this perverted idea of democracy.” Due to her courage and determination, Pandey gained instant fame, in a country where one in three citizens is between 18 and 35 years old and one in four lives below the national poverty line.
Pandey says she posted guidelines on Instagram for protesters to do and not to do, asking people outside of Gen Z not to participate. “We are independent and we didn’t want vested interests to come and create problems for our cause because our movement is a united voice of the youth,” she says.
Pandey says she and her friends are now fighting for justice for their friends who were killed in police action.
“Go f@@@e, with respect.”
“It was a failure of the state. We want immediate justice for our comrades who lost their lives,” she says, adding that the movement’s other demands include immediate elections and institution-building to check corruption. They are also demanding that Oli and his former home minister, Ramesh Lehak, be brought to justice for their role in the killings of unarmed youth.
Pandey is determined to continue her campaign for transparency and fair governance. In a social media post on September 13, she wrote:
“Citizens should be the harshest critics of any government. We are not here to cheer for leaders who were sent there to do good. Our job is to challenge them and hold them accountable. Praise breeds blind faith, and blind faith breeds populism. We are the real opposition.”
Using Gen Z communication tactics, Pandey mocked her critics and those who spread lies about her “imaginary” connections to monarchy-era politicians.
“Nepal has its first female prime minister. To those spreading hate or rumors about me… this is a response for you. “While ensuring that no populist returns. Long live Nepal’s Generation Z (@gen.znepal),” he captioned a photo of Pandey tilting her head forward to reveal the message on her hat: “Go f@@@e, with respect.”
The young activist insists that people change when they come to power. “It’s not just ideology that matters. It doesn’t matter whether people are left-wing or right-wing. When it comes to corruption, I think it’s more about ethics and morals than ideology.”
Pandey is bitter about rumors circulating in some media and social media that link her to the Nepali Congress and former politician Ramesh Nath Pandey, who was foreign minister during the monarchy. “They say I’m his granddaughter. The truth is that my grandfather died 42 years ago and I’m from Jhapa in eastern Nepal, where I did my schooling before coming to Kathmandu to study law.”
A representative of a generation ready to change everything, Pandey has become the poster girl for an uprising that wants to change the cover-up of the plutocrats and their servants in the seats. Gen Z is showing its teeth.
Nepal is a young democracy. It became a democracy in 2008, after a decade-long civil war that left more than 17,000 dead and brought the Maoists to power. However, the promised stability and prosperity never came.
In 17 years, Nepal has had 14 governments, and no leader has completed a five-year term. The communists and the centrist Nepali Congress have alternated in power. Three leaders, including Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli, who resigned amid Gen Z protests, have come to power several times.
Nepal’s per capita GDP has remained below $1,400, making it the second poorest country in South Asia, behind only Afghanistan. About 14% of the population works abroad, and one in three households receives remittances.
Uncertain but hopeful, future
On September 8, Tanuja Pandey arrived at the Maithrigarh Mandala Square in Kathmandu, expecting a few thousand protesters, but the crowd kept growing. Protester Akriti Ghimire, 26, said the gatherings were initially peaceful.
“We all sat together, singing old songs. The slogans were funny, we enjoyed it. And then we started marching,” she said. But both Pandey and Ghimire realized the danger when the crowd started moving towards the parliament building.
They saw people arriving on motorbikes, who looked older than the protesters. Ghimire believes they were provocateurs. “It became very difficult to distinguish peaceful protesters from those who intended to cause violence,” he emphasizes.
When some protesters tried to breach the security around Parliament, police responded with tear gas, water cannons and gunfire. There are indications that live ammunition was used and allegations that police fired at students. The incident is under investigation.
The next day, chaos and violence escalated, with protesters setting fire to the Parliament building and other government buildings. Tanuja Pandey burst into tears when she saw the Supreme Court building burning. “It’s like a temple to me,” she said.
“People are saying that the arsonists came deliberately to burn these things… Who are these people?” Ghimire wonders. “The videos show that all these people are wearing masks.”
Order was restored when the army intervened to bring the situation under control, imposing a days-long curfew. Later in the week, former Supreme Court chief justice and anti-corruption crusader Sushila Karki was appointed interim prime minister. She had been backed by protesters for the position.
Pandey hopes that she will “be able to lead the country effectively, hold elections on time, and hand over power to the people.” But concerns about Nepal’s political future remain.
Rumela Sen, a South Asian expert at Columbia University, said she was concerned. “I am troubled by this unprecedented glorification of the army as a voice of reason and stability,” she said.
“We are no longer prepared to remain silent or accept injustice,” Pandey concluded. “This is not just a friendly reminder of my generation. It is a bold challenge to a system that has concentrated power for decades.”
