The what, why and how of Nepal’s Gen Z protest | Chota Hafta 554

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, and Raman Kirpal are joined by Kanak Mani Dixit, founder-editor of Himal South Asian, and writer and podcaster Anurag Minus Verma.

The conversation opens with Abhinandan asking Kanak about the current law and order situation in Nepal. “On the ninth of September, there was pretty much violence everywhere… the Army came onto the streets and there’s curfew, but things are calm now,” says Kanak.

He says the Gen Z representatives rooted their protest in two demands: good governance and action against entrenched high-level corruption.

“Corruption that was not really being tackled by the system, even though the journalists were very capable over the last few years in digging up the muck. They were great muck records, but the state system, the courts, the investigation, the attorney general's office, nobody took it to a conclusion. All of that was base-level disenchantment in the whole country … The trigger was the suspension of about 25 social media platforms announced by the government,” Kanak states.

Manisha highlights that the unrest began with an attack on ‘nepo babies’. “What the young in Nepal are calling out is politicians’ kids who have access to vacations abroad, who have Christmas trees with Louis Vuitton boxes lined up. A lot of it starts off with this comparison of, look at these politicians’ kids – where they’ve gone, what they’re doing, what they’re capable of – and look at us. Where are we? The roads, the corruption, the houses falling. So there is this intense kind of barrage, especially on TikTok, of Gen Z going after Gen Z,” she says.

Abhinandan contextualises Nepal’s turmoil in relation to India’s size, and says, “It’s happening [here] –just too big. Kashmir and Kerala aren’t going to explode together. So don’t be under the impression it’s not happening. It is as violent, but our size keeps us together.”

Yet, Kanak insists Nepal was not a failed state. “Nepal, even today, has a possibility of being an exemplar for South Asia… the only country in South Asia which doesn’t have a death penalty… where the Supreme Court passes its judgment in the national language,” he says.

Later in the show, Anurag argues that the very label “Gen Z” obscures more than it explains. “Gen Z can also be in the popular sense privileged kids into Netflix and chill… but Gen Z are also people living in small towns with very different aspirations.”

Still, he said corruption remains a unifier: “In popular terms, corruption is one issue that can bring people across caste, geographical, linguistic lines… That is what happened during the Anna movement in India.”

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