This story By Supriya Thapa originally appeared on Global Voices on 14 October 2025
Weeks after police shot into a crowd of student demonstrators in September, killing at least 19 people, the smoke still hung over Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. The streets, once filled with schoolchildren, were now occupied by armed soldiers.
What started as a protest against a social media ban wasn’t solely about TikTok or Facebook. It was the emergence of long-held frustrations and a reckoning with a century of instability and corruption.
The Gen Z protesters in Nepal inherited a democracy their grandparents fought for, and watched with their parents as it unraveled. To understand the anger of 2025, you must review a history characterized by kings, revolutions, and continual demands for accountability.
For much of modern history, Nepal was governed by kings. The Rana dynasty seized power in 1848, establishing an oligarchy that isolated Nepal for over a century. Education was limited to elites, and the general Nepali population had little say in government.
After World War II, inspired by India’s independence, Nepali exiles began to form opposition parties. A revolt in 1951, backed by King Tribhuvan, ended Rana rule and opened Nepal’s borders.
Within a year, King Mahendra dissolved parliament, banned parties, and imposed the autocratic Panchayat system. For the next 30 years, Nepal was governed by a complicated hierarchy of councils that reported directly to the crown. Political dissidents or challengers to the crown were either jailed or exiled. News media were heavily censored, but some dissent still survived underground.
As the 1980s drew to a close, the economy was stagnant, government corruption was rampant, and a new generation of students was demanding change. Following weeks of mass action in 1990 by the People’s Movement, or Jana Andolan I, King Birendra agreed to return to a multiparty democracy.
A new constitution established a constitutional monarchy and civil liberties.
However, euphoria quickly turned to disappointment. Governments changed with great consistency; in the decade from 1991 to 2001, a prime minister was appointed and dismissed more than a dozen times. Political parties split into factions that sought to hold power rather than craft policy.
As inequality deepened and rural communities lost faith in politicians who failed to deliver roads, electricity, or jobs, space opened for a radical alternative. In 1996, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) launched an armed rebellion demanding the end of the monarchy, as well as land reform and social justice. The conflict engulfed much of the countryside, leaving over 17,000 dead by the early 2000s.
The country then faced a national trauma when, in 2001, there was a royal massacre. Crown Prince Dipendra reportedly shot and killed King Birendra, Queen Aishwarya and nine other royals before turning the gun on himself; he was said to be intoxicated at the time.
King Gyanendra assumed the throne and, in 2005, dissolved parliament, declaring a state of emergency, which united opposition political parties, civil society, and the Maoists.
In 2006, during mass protests referred to as Jana Andolan II, Gyanendra was forced to step down. By 2008, the monarchy was finally abolished. Nepal became a federal democratic republic, and the former Maoist leaders became parliamentarians.
The new republic gave rise to great hope. The first constituent assembly was set up to draft a constitution that would guarantee representation for women, Dalits, Indigenous groups, and Madhesi groups.
However, the process took seven years, marked by disputes among the elites. It was after the assembly was dissolved twice that it finally adopted a new constitution in 2015.
The new document established a federal regime dividing Nepal into seven provinces and also provided for rights and inclusion. However, the document was created amid controversy, and many marginalized groups said they were excluded.
Over the next few years, the country cycled through coalitions of the same people, including K.P. Sharma Oli, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Pushpa Kamal Dahal, known as “Prachanda,” in roles as prime ministers and each, without exception, said they would deliver reforms, but either had their assets challenged or misappropriated with patronage or corruption.
As migration increased, nearly 14 percent of the population was now working outside the country, and remittances had become the country’s economic lifeline. But the gap between rich and poor was expanding. Schools and hospitals in rural areas were deteriorating, while the elite flaunted their wealth.
Social media became both a salve and a reflection, a place where frustration brewed, as hashtags like #NepoKids and #YouthsAgainstCorruption highlighted elite privileges.
By 2024, the Nepali economy was suffocated by inflation, youth unemployment and political stagnation. The government’s response was not to improve through reforms, but to impose new regulations that restricted online platforms and digital publishers.
In early September, student groups began organizing through encrypted apps and offline groups. Within days, thousands of students marched in Kathmandu, Pokhara and Lalitpur.
They held signs, like “Stop corruption, not social media.” Many were teenagers raised on stories of the democracy movement, but having only experienced dysfunction.
When crowds grew outside parliament, police fired tear gas and then live rounds. Hospitals were flooded with students in school uniforms. At least 19 people were dead, according to local media and human rights organizations. The government imposed a curfew period, shut down mobile networks, and deployed army forces.
That night, as public anger erupted, the Home Minister resigned. The cabinet reversed the ban, but protests spread beyond Kathmandu as anger ignited over inequality and corruption.
In the upheaval that ensued, mobs attacked government buildings and politicians’ homes. Former Prime Minister Deuba and his wife, Arzu Rana Deuba, were rescued by the army after protesters stormed their residence.
With the capital under military lockdown, President Ram Chandra Poudel appointed former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister, making her Nepal’s first woman to hold this position.
Karki, 73, is a retired Supreme Court justice known for her anti-corruption rulings. Her appointment had the endorsement of the youth representatives who helped lead the protests.
Karki’s caretaking government has congratulated itself on the pledge to investigate the killings, restore order and hold new elections in March 2026; whether or not that counts for building trust is another question entirely.
Nepal’s history has been one of surges followed by stagnation: revolution, hopes, paralysis. Every time, from 1951 to 1990 to 2006, the revolution brought down an old order but then failed to generate sustainable change.
For Gen Z, the challenge is whether the moment can achieve its breakthrough. The movement has already made history: by holding accountable, by getting a woman to the highest position in the country, and by making it clear that civic action is still possible in a compromised system.
The streets of Kathmandu are silent, but tension remains. Students are still keeping vigils every night in memory of the deaths. The university walls are covered with graffiti saying, “If not now, when?”
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called for independent inquiries into the actions of the police and military. The military maintains it acted to protect public order, noting many involved were minors.
In her first statements as interim prime minister, Karki urged calm during this time of unrest. “Change must come through institutions, not fire,” she stated. But she also expressed agreement that young Nepalis were “right to demand dignity and opportunity.”
It remains to be seen whether the protests will mark the beginning of a journey towards reform or simply be the latest chapter in Nepal’s long narrative of hope and disappointment.
But there is one constant; every one of our movements since the fall of the Ranas has been driven by students who believed their country could be better. By that measure, the protests in 2025 were in no way a break from history; instead, they were a continuation of it. [VP]
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