From Dhaka to Kathmandu: How Gen Z is confronting power in South Asia

The past year has belonged to Generation Z in South Asia. This year seems to follow suit. From the streets of Dhaka in July 2024 to the heart of Kathmandu this September, young people have shown a willingness to confront the state in ways their elders often fear to.

What unites these uprisings is not only the courage of youth, but also the stubborn refusal of governments to understand them. The Nepali prime minister finally resigned today, but not before 19 students had been killed in the capital of Nepal amid escalating protests over corruption and a ban on social media. Popular news outlets are referring to it as the Gen Z movement.

Bangladesh's uprising in 2024 began over government job quotas and spiralled into the largest mass uprising in decades. Students who first marched against an unfair policy soon found themselves demanding an end to the authoritarian government. The response was brutal: bullets, internet blackouts, and mass arrests. The bloodshed shocked the world. The movement, at heavy cost, became a success, which toppled a 15-year regime.

Nepal today faces its own moment of reckoning. A sweeping ban on Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and X was meant to curb "misinformation." For young Nepalis, it felt like an attack on their right to speak and be heard. Their protests have been met with water cannons, rubber bullets, and curfews, resulting in the loss of 19 lives and scarring an entire generation.

The irony is that repression rarely works the way governments think it will. Crackdowns often backfire and result in drawing more people into the streets, as evident in many past instances. High-intensity violence may intimidate some, but it also erodes the very legitimacy on which rulers depend. State violence delegitimised a regime and forced its leader into exile in Dhaka. In Kathmandu, early signs of concession, lifting the ban, and finally the resignation of the head of state suggest that leaders realised the repercussions of state violence a little too late.

What these young protesters are demanding is not complicated. They want dignity, transparency, and a say in their future. They are not content to inherit broken systems. They are willing to risk tear gas and live fire to make that point clear. They are raising their voices against corruption and corrupt political elites, or "nepo-kids" who are immune to police investigation.

The question is whether South Asia's governments will learn the lesson. If they continue to mistreat the digital natives rather than treating them as citizens with voices, they will find themselves confronted again and again. And each time, the costs will be higher.

South Asian states must realise the cost of such repression before it's too late. Also, states must understand that their old formula to suppress dissent won't work for Gen Z, who are the most exposed to digital media, thus well aware of their rights and about what's going on around the world.

Gen Z is teaching their leaders a lesson: repression is not strength, and silence cannot be legislated. Whether in Dhaka or Kathmandu, the future of democracy depends on whether those in power are willing to learn it.

Arifur Rahaman is PhD student of political science at The University of Alabama in the US.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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