by JINOY JOSE P.
Dear reader,
This morning Frontline hosted a webinar on Nepal’s “GenZ Uprising”. While preparing and researching for it, this image given above stopped me in my tracks.
Shot in Kathmandu on September 9, it shows a street thick with smoke and energy. At the centre: a man in a bright blue uniform shirt, face hidden by a red Spider-Man mask, fingers cocked in the superhero’s web-shooting pose. His shirt bears an insignia hinting at a security or traffic role. Beside him, a grinning youth in a sailor-style cap draped in Nepal’s flag. Motorcyclists crowd the lower frame, helmets glinting as they weave through the protesters; one bike is dressed up with garlands and stickers. Behind them, a throng of young men raise phones and planks, their faces alive with fury or delight.
Above it all, the Federal Parliament looms, half-veiled by black smoke from nearby fires. The photo catches a collision of carnival and crisis—comic masks and nationalist symbols clashing with real rage and the scent of state collapse.
On TV and the web, the videos were louder. Young voices echoed through Kathmandu: “KP Chor, Desh Chhod” (KP thief, leave the country), they chanted as smoke billowed from the parliament building and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s residence burned.
If you’ve followed the news, you know the story. What began as peaceful protests against a social media ban turned into an uprising after 19 young people were shot dead by security forces. With youth unemployment at 20.8 per cent and politicians’ children flaunting designer lives on the very platforms their parents banned, Nepal’s Gen Z took matters into their own hands. The protests snowballed into a larger political crisis that might have repercussions for entire South Asia.
The images scream of democracy’s eternal tension: the gap between promise and delivery, between those who govern and those who must suffer “governance”. Some dismiss these as “woke” tantrums; some call it Nepal’s Jasmine Revolution. Whether one agrees or not, this is democracy in action—in all its messy, uncertain, chaotic, yet oddly beautiful form.
When the webinar—hosted by Nirupama Subramanian, who spoke with the senior journalist R.K. Radhakrishnan and the Kathmandu-based policy expert Akhilesh Upadhya—ended, I stepped out for tea. At the stall, I ran into two strangers arguing about a dilapidated bridge nearby, meant to have been rebuilt years ago. One man sighed: “If this were in the Gulf, it’d be done in a week. Roads come up overnight there.” The older man, perhaps in his 60s, set down his samosa. “My friend,” he said with measured patience, “I know that system. I lived it. Things get done overnight, yes. But have you thought of the price? That price is freedom. That region will take decades to reach what we achieved in 1947.”
His companion, in crisp Malayalam, countered like a WhatsApp forward: “But our systems are corrupt, chaotic, tilted toward wealth and power.” The elder man breathed deep and said. “That’s democracy’s beauty, don’t you think? You see the flaws, debate in the streets, curse leaders, burn effigies, vote them out. Just like in Nepal [he was watching the news on his mobile; he gestured towards the device]. Try that in the Gulf, you’ll see!” He caught my eye with a knowing smile. His friend fell silent, tea cooling in his hand.
Nepal’s protesters, like that elder man, grasp democracy’s essential truth: inequalities and anomalies can only be challenged in free societies. Yes, democracy moves slowly. It frustrates. It disappoints. But nothing replaces it. Not monarchy, not anarchy. Across the world, the lesson bears repeating, especially now in India, where the seduction of authoritarian “efficiency” is growing.
Democracy is young. Universal suffrage—the very heart of it—is barely a century old. Switzerland gave women the vote only in 1971. Saudi Arabia (still not a democracy) in 2015 [actually 2025]. Today, just over 20 per cent of the world’s population lives in fully free societies. The Yale historian Timothy Snyder reminds us in On Tyranny that Europe’s young democracies actually collapsed into fascism within two decades of birth. The American republic lasted longer, but even it needed a civil war to reckon with slavery. India, against predictions, has been one of democracy’s brightest experiments.
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