First published in Transform! Europe.
“Down with corruption!”
“No more lies!”
“We want jobs, not excuses!”
Barely one month ago, these chants echoed through Kathmandu’s Ratna Park as hundreds of young people waved handmade placards. Some were scrawled in English — “Democracy, Not Dictatorship” — while others featured simple Nepali slogans: Roti, Kapda, Ghar (bread, clothes, shelter).
Twenty-two-year-old Arjun stood on a low wall, megaphone in hand. A recent economics graduate, he has faced unemployment for nearly a year. “I studied so I could work here,” he told the crowd. “But my future is a list of jobs abroad. Is this the democracy we fought for?” Nearby, Pushpa, a mother of two from Chitwan district, clutched a placard that read, “Stop Selling Our Youth to the Gulf.” Her husband has been working in Qatar for seven years. “I don’t want my sons to leave too,” she said, her eyes watering from tear gas. “We want to live together, not in pieces.” Notably, it is estimated that 10 percent of the Nepali population (around 3 million) migrates abroad at any given time.
“We aspire to transform our country into one like Denmark, free from corruption,” stated 20-year-old Anjana Tiwari while cleaning up refuse at a makeshift camp, voicing the sentiments of many young demonstrators who filled the streets of Kathmandu. “We hope to elect a compassionate and diligent leader who will enhance the beauty of our nation in every way.”
The government’s sudden mid-September ban on social media was the immediate catalyst for this wave of protests, which continued even after the ban was lifted. However, as reflected in the slogans, the underlying motivation for the crowds was much broader: a feeling that seventeen years after Nepal abolished its monarchy, the republic has become hollow.
The fall of the king
To understand the roots of the current disillusionment, we must examine Nepal’s recent history. On a summer night in June 2001, a tragic event unfolded when most of the royal family was murdered inside Narayanhiti Palace, their official residence. Among the deceased were King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya, and Crown Prince Dipendra. Following this tragedy, the crown was passed to Gyanendra, Birendra’s brother.
Gyanendra quickly demonstrated his authoritarian approach. By 2005, he had dissolved parliament, suspended all political parties, and declared a state of emergency. Media outlets faced censorship, and numerous protesters were imprisoned.
The response was an uprising. In April 2006, millions took to the streets. “We had nothing but our voices,” recalls Anjana, a retired teacher who marched alongside her students. “We carried placards that proclaimed, ‘No More Kings,’ and sang until our throats bled.”
For nineteen days, protesters bravely defied bullets and curfews. Farmers from the hills marched alongside factory workers, while women formed human chains around the rally sites. Students filled the squares of Kathmandu. The strength of this movement ultimately compelled Gyanendra to restore parliament.
Two years later, in May 2008, the monarchy was officially abolished. As the royal flag was lowered, crowds erupted in cheers and waved banners proclaiming “Loktantra Zindabad” (Long live democracy). The palace was transformed into a museum, and a republic was formally declared.
In the early 2000s, when left movements across much of the world were retreating under the weight of neoliberal triumphalism and the collapse of old socialist experiments, Nepal offered a rare spark of hope. The Maoist insurgency, followed by the mass uprising that toppled the monarchy, seemed to breathe new life into the global left. Here was a small Himalayan country where peasants, workers, and students had forced open the doors of history, establishing a republic at the very moment when socialism elsewhere appeared exhausted.
The red promise
The abolition of the monarchy positioned communists at the core of the new republic. Maoists, emerging from a decade of armed struggle, alongside the Unified Marxist-Leninists (UML), dominated parliament. They promised a “new Nepal” that would provide land for the landless, jobs for the youth, and equality for Dalits and minorities. Guerrillas, once clad in fatigues, now occupied seats in parliament, assuring voters that their sacrifices had not been in vain.
“It was like watching history bend in our direction,” said Bhim, a former Maoist fighter. “We held placards that read, ‘Power to the People,’ and we truly believed it.” However, that belief quickly transformed into bitterness. A period of political paralysis marked by a series of betrayals unfolded. The process of drafting the constitution dragged on for years as political parties fought over power-sharing arrangements, all while corruption continued to spread. The three major political parties, the Communist Party of Nepal (UML), the Maoists, and the Nepali Congress, have been involved in a power struggle since the country’s transition to a new republic.
In 2018, the Maoists and the UML united to form the Nepal Communist Party, led by K. P. Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as “Prachanda,” who shared leadership and commanded a significant majority. The masses enthusiastically welcomed this development, as demonstrated by placards at rallies proclaiming “Stability at Last.” However, Oli’s decision to dissolve parliament in 2020 shattered that optimism, plunging the country into a new wave of instability and governance challenges. Protesters returned to the streets wielding signs that read, “This Is Not Why We Abolished the King.” Despite the Supreme Court’s ultimate overturn of Oli’s action, the public’s trust had already suffered significant damage. Shortly thereafter, the party itself fractured under the weight of personal egos and legal disputes.
“Every time we think we have leaders, they betray us,” said Rita, a garment worker. “Our placards continue to change, but the message remains the same: stop stealing our future.” Beyond the political drama, daily life has worsened. Unemployment has soared. While migrant remittances have become lifelines, they have also drained villages of their youth. In Kathmandu, luxury apartments are being built even as rural schools close. Poverty remains persistently high.
Pushpa, a mother from Chitwan, displayed her worn placard to a reporter, stating, “My children want their father, not remittances.” For her, the failure of the republic is a deeply personal matter. The pandemic intensified feelings of anger as patients suffocated outside hospitals due to a lack of oxygen. Widespread corruption led to the breakdown of vaccine procurement, leaving families to bury their loved ones without receiving any medical care. “We carried placards that read, ‘We Can’t Breathe,’ even before the police resorted to tear gas,” recalled Laxmi, a shopkeeper who lost her father in 2021.
Warning signs ignored
In 2022, voters in Kathmandu shocked the nation and major political parties by electing Balen Shah, a rapper and independent candidate, as the city’s mayor. Young supporters displayed placards reading, “No Party, No Corruption.” Shah’s victory was more than just symbolic; it indicated that citizens were ready to move away from traditional political parties. “He was the first person we believed in,” said Sabina, a student activist. “He made politics feel human again.” The widespread frustration with the political class was evident. It represented Nepal’s moment of ‘Que se vayan todos,’ although it was not articulated in overtly political terms.
The mainstream parties, a little wary of such developments, decided to bury their heads in the sand and refused to reflect on the implications of his victory, instead dismissing it as an anomaly. Their disregard for the warning signs was evident, as they continued with business as usual, showing little concern for the plight of the masses. By the time Nepal entered the fiscal year 2022–23, the promises of its federal democratic republic had already begun to erode under the pressures of economic stagnation and growing inequality. For s significant majority of Nepali households, these translated into severe hardships, especially those relying on daily wages, farming, or precarious employment or livelihood.
Inflation emerged as the most noticeable indication of economic distress, with consumer prices increasing by an average of 7.7 percent in 2022–23, compared to approximately 6.3 percent the previous year. While these figures might appear modest in relation to global spikes, for Nepali families living on tight budgets, this increase represented a significant shift, often leading to the choice between three meals a day and just two. Food inflation alone exceeded 6.6 percent, with essential items such as cereals, cooking oils, and spices experiencing price hikes in the double digits. Restaurants and hotels, typically affordable for lower-middle-income families, reported inflation rates surpassing 14 percent. Concurrently, transportation expenses skyrocketed, driven by a 30–47 percent surge in petrol and diesel prices, a consequence of Russia’s war in Ukraine disrupting global energy markets.
These were not abstract figures for ordinary citizens. They resulted in a doubling of bus fares for students, an increase in fertilizer deliveries for farmers, and a reduction in meat consumption for families. The Kathmandu Post even reported “shrinkflation,” which involves shops quietly reducing the size of packets while maintaining prices at a consistent level, further eroding purchasing power. In the same way that households were being eroded by increasing prices, they were also being squeezed by stagnant and precarious employment. In 2022, the unemployment rate for the general population was approximately 10–11 percent. However, the unemployment rate for young adults, or those aged 15–24, was above 20 percent, with some estimates indicating that it reached 22.7 percent. The outcome was that one in five young individuals was either unemployed or compelled to engage in low-paying, casual employment. Desperation had replaced expectations of opportunity for the generation that had matured subsequent to the monarchy’s abolishment.
Like most other parts of the Global South, the job market in Nepal is highly characterised by informal or daily wage work, with minimal social protection.
Nominal wages rose in certain months, but inflation negated these temporary gains. The real wages — the amount of money that workers could actually spend — remained stagnant or decreased. Agricultural workers, daily wage earners, and small service employees were the most severely affected by this decline. Although the urban elite could protect themselves from, or even benefit from, these price fluctuations, the impoverished were left vulnerable.
This divergence was not new. Nepal’s income structure had long been unequal, but the gap widened after 2008. According to surveys, the share of household income coming from farming collapsed from over 60 per cent in the mid-1990s to barely 16–17 per cent by 2022–23. Agriculture, once the backbone of rural livelihoods, was in decline, leaving communities dependent on migration and remittances. At the same time, the wealthiest deciles captured much of the growth in income, while the poorest gained far less.
Remittances play a major role in the Nepalese economy and, by 2022, constituted nearly 25% of Nepal’s GDP. They served both as a lifeline and a trap for many families. While remittances enabled households to cope with inflation, pay school fees, and build homes, they also had devastating effects on villages and contributed to family divisions. This left Nepal in a precarious situation, reliant on the labour of millions working in the Gulf, Malaysia, and India. The frequent arrival of coffins at Tribhuvan Airport in Kathmandu, as common as remittance transfers, poignantly illustrated the hidden costs of this export model.
The Covid-19 pandemic compounded the sense of abandonment. Hospitals ran out of oxygen, vaccine procurement was riddled with allegations of corruption, and patients died without treatment. By 2022, memories of those failures still haunted families, amplifying mistrust in the state. Inflation, unemployment, and political paralysis layered on top of a public health disaster, deepening the legitimacy crisis.
The already prevailing sense of betrayal and abandonment was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which created uncertainty and widespread distress. The vaccine procurement process was plagued by allegations of corruption, hospitals ran out of oxygen, and patients died without treatment. Their distrust of the state and the political class intensified in 2022, as the memories of those failures lingered. The legitimacy crisis is further exacerbated by inflation, unemployment, and political paralysis, which are imposed on top of a public health disaster.
As we can see, by 2022, Nepal was grappling not only with an economic downturn but also with a fundamental social crisis. The food and fuel prices inflation on one hand and an increasing unemployment and falling wages on the other, meant that households could no longer maintain even basic living standards. Inequality became more pronounced; the urban affluent managed to weather inflation, while the rural impoverished fell further behind.
For the youth, the options diminished to either migration or despair.
It was clear that Nepal’s crisis extended beyond the official data presented in government or other reports. It encompassed the gradual deterioration of daily life. The republic, which had pledged to provide bread, jobs, and dignity, now offered a lack of food and irregular and precarious employment, resulting in a fractured sense of trust. The protests that emerged in 2022 and later were not unexpected eruptions; rather, they were the inevitable reaction of a society pushed to its limits.
The new revolt
By September 2025, the “Gen Z revolt” had taken over Nepal’s streets. The government’s decision to ban social media was the immediate spark, but the fury that brought tens of thousands of young people into Kathmandu and cities like Pokhara, Biratnagar, and Butwal had been building for years. This was a generation born in the shadow of the republic, raised on promises of opportunity and equality, yet confronted with joblessness, rising prices, corruption, and a politics that treated them as disposable. Students, unemployed graduates, and young workers—many in their teens and early twenties — tore down barricades and flooded squares with placards demanding bread, jobs, and justice. The repression was brutal: tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, and live rounds. By mid-September, at least 72 were dead and more than 2,100 injured, turning the protest into one of the bloodiest popular uprisings since the fall of the monarchy.
Despite claims from both the government and right-wing voices, the left cannot dismiss these protests as “foreign-sponsored” plots. To do so is to deny the lived reality of young Nepalis whose daily survival is squeezed by inflation, falling real wages, and the hollowing out of rural livelihoods. Many protesters were the children of migrants who grew up on remittances but now face the same bleak choice: migrate or rot in unemployment. Their slogans stemmed not from Washington or Beijing, but from the emptiness of their stomachs and the broken dreams of their futures. That the uprising forced Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli to resign underlines not imperial manipulation but the depth of popular anger against a corrupt, self-serving political class. The emergence of Sushila Karki as interim prime minister will not in itself answer the demands shouted on the streets. What the revolt has revealed is the raw impatience of a generation that no longer believes in waiting for change from above. For Nepal’s left, the challenge is clear: either reconnect with this anger and give it direction, or risk ceding the future to reactionary forces waiting in the wings.
Nepal’s uprising is not an isolated incident but a part of a broader wave of popular rebellion sweeping across the South and Southeast Asian region. In recent years, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and now Nepal have all experienced popular revolts against corrupt elites and collapsing economies. The Indonesian people were also in the streets in one of the biggest mobilisations in recent times.
The similarities are striking: governments unable to manage inflation or secure livelihoods, ruling parties entrenched in patronage and scandal, and citizens reclaiming the streets as the only space where their voices can be heard. Across the region, like in most of the parts of the world, youth in particular are refusing to accept the erosion of democracy and the politics of survival, articulating a shared demand for dignity, accountability, and real change.
The future?
Yet Nepal’s political leadership continues to live in the past, responding with denial and deflection. Rather than acknowledging the deep social and economic grievances that fuel the unrest, both the left and the right insist that the protests are merely foreign-sponsored. The US is portrayed and blamed as a hidden hand, allegedly funding and manipulating Nepal’s youth to destabilise the republic. This narrative may strengthen general anti-imperialist sentiments, but it seriously underestimates and overlooks a crucial point: mass anger in Nepal arises from hunger, unemployment, corruption, and the constriction of democratic space. Reducing it to an external conspiracy strips people of their agency and masks the state’s own failures. Secondly, such blind allegations lack concrete evidence.
The crossroads facing Nepal are crystal clear: a potential outcome is a continuation of the status quo — elite coalitions reshuffled yet again, protests repressed or dissipated, and the underlying crisis allowed to fester. The other possibility is the resurgence of right-wing and monarchist forces, offering the comforting illusion of order by reviving old symbols of power. The third, and most hopeful, scenario involves a grassroots renewal — workers demanding fair wages, farmers fighting for land and security, and students and young people refusing to accept a future devoid of dignity — transforming street anger into a political project that confronts inequality and revitalises the radical promise of the republic.
The ability to channel the uprising’s energy into sustainable structures of resistance and representation will determine which path prevails. How far this can succeed may become evident in March 2026, when new elections are scheduled and many of Nepal’s Generation Z, who took part in the protests, have already registered enthusiastically to vote.
The stark reality of Nepal’s unfinished democratic experiment emerges seventeen years after the abolition of the monarchy. The republican hope and dream once stood for equality, participation, and social justice; however, the reality has been one of instability, corruption, and a gradual betrayal of the people’s hopes. The current movement demonstrates that, despite these disappointments, ordinary Nepalis have not abandoned the streets — or their own power to shape history. What remains uncertain is whether Nepal’s political class can be compelled — or replaced — to ensure that this time, the sacrifices lead to lasting transformation. There is no doubt that the Nepalese left needs to reinvent itself to prevent extinction.
