Overview

The sardonic wit of this article’s title belies the bloodshed and the brutality of the events that played out in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, earlier this week. In an awe-inspiring display of civic strength, thousands of Nepalese flocked to the streets to protest the endemic corruption of the K.P. Sharma Oli government. Fed up with government misuse of taxpayer dollars, patronage, and most recently, a September 4th ban on various popular social media sites (e.g., Youtube, Reddit, and Instagram), the youth of Nepal rallied around their federal parliament building and Maitighar Mandala, a local monument, in the hope of engaging in nonviolent protest.

Their peaceful demonstration was met with a hail of bullets and tear gas by the Nepalese Armed Forces. September 8th, the first day of the protests, fifty-one innocents were slaughtered by Oli’s thugs. In the days that followed, twenty-one more would perish and an untold number of lives would be permanently altered.

This mass shooting would kick off what is now being humorously referred to as the Gen-Z Protests in Nepal and end in the toppling of the K.P. Sharma Oli government. Since the fall of the Oli government, an interim Prime Minister, Sushila Karki, has been appointed to preside over Nepal as a caretaker until elections can be formally held. Karki, a former Chief Justice in Nepal and the first female leader of the country, has a long road ahead of her as she seeks to appease various interest groups and prevent Nepal from falling into further democratic backsliding.

Stringer/Reuters

The Situation at Present

In the wake of the revolution, Gen-Z protestors have demanded that Prime Minister Karki hold senior party leaders within the government responsible for systemic corruption and graft. While Karki has promised to investigate corruption and is organizing an anti-corruption committee to do so, at present she seems to be constrained by the old guard of the Nepalese government who wish to let sleeping dogs lie. Major political elements within Nepal, such as K.P. Sharma Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal, are expected to be highly resistant to any future inquiry. Sudan Gurung, one of the leaders of the Gen-Z movement in Nepal and the figurehead of the NGO Hami Nepal, has been particularly vocal with him stating that: “We mainly expect her [Karki] to fight corruption. She is our mother, and we believe she will protect us.”

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At the same time, while trying to contend with systemic corruption and criticism from Gen-Z protestors, Karki and her newly formed government will have to navigate a declining economy with the Nepalese debt ranking somewhere in the range of $40 billion dollars. Facing a declining tourism industry and the need for rebuilding in the wake of the protests, Karki’s government will need to invest substantially in the economy if they want to pull Nepal back from the brink.

Prime Minister Karki’s new cabinet has also faced controversy with several ministers refusing cabinet positions and other proposed ministers being rejected due to allegations of corruption. As it stands, while a standard Council of Ministers may contain up to twenty-five ministers, Karki’s proposed cabinet will contain only eleven. This fledgling group, consisting mostly of activists, lawyers, and long-time politicians, has promised to hold elections on March 5, 2026, to decide on the next official government of Nepal.

There is some doubt as to whether March 5th will ever come though. Since the Nepalese monarchy was toppled in 2008, instability in Nepalese governance has been the norm with some twelve-odd governments being appointed between then and now. An unstable economy and growing political tensions between the corrupt old guard and the avant-garde Gen-Z protestors seem to be the two primary potential threats to ensuring stability in Nepal over the next six months.

The Social Media Aspect

What is most of note, in the context of what happened in Nepal, is the extent to which social media played a decisive role in the conflict. Early on, prior to the September 4th protests, images of wealthy Nepalese bluebloods, derivatively referred to as “nepo babies”, on social media flaunting their wealth played a powerful part in enraging public sentiment against the sitting government. This severe disparity between the wealth shown by the Nepalese upper crust on social media and the poverty that many Nepalese live in was one of the major inciting factors for the conflict itself.

Niranjan Shrestha/AP Photo

Outrage only further fomented when the K.P. Sharma Oli government issued a selective ban on social media access among the Nepalese public. Sparked in part by a desire to institute some level of digital control over how social media reached its citizenry, the Nepalese government had demanded that all social media platforms register with the government. After many social media platforms refused or outright ignored the government’s request, a sweeping ban was issued on August 28th against any platform that did not register with the government. As a student of revolutions, it is interesting to speculate to what extent social media access and the control over it will play a major role in the political revolts of the future.

Nepalese people TikToking and recording the protests live to post later on their Instagram and Youtube accounts springs to mind. With revolutions and political unrest now being able to be documented live to the world by everyday Joe Blows rather than being exclusive to media outlets, there has been a great democratization of the political media landscape in recent years. This can be seen more recently in Bangladesh and Palestine, where everyone is now a journalist in the continual fight against civil repression and tyrannical governments.

Conclusion

The situation in Nepal appears reflective of a larger frustration with the quality of democracy in Asia currently that can be found likewise in Bangladesh, Tibet, and Hong Kong in recent memory. The continual struggle against political instability for the Nepalese, in particular, has been an ongoing and long fought battle dating back to 2008 and beyond. One can only hope that Prime Minister Sushila Karki will be able to shepherd Nepal further in the following months as it grapples with its own legacy of systemic corruption and political repression. Although, if its neighbours, such as Bangladesh, are any frame of reference, it is worrisome to think that things may get much worse before they get better for the country.