 "How Nepal’s leaderless Gen Z protests are one of a kind")
It started with silence. Not the peaceful kind that follows rain in Kathmandu, but a suffocating one. Digital, sudden and imposed. On September 4, Nepal’s government pulled the plug on 26 social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, X, Reddit, etc—the very lifelines of information and connectivity for a generation. The official explanation was dry. Platforms hadn’t complied with new registration rules. However, for millions of young Nepalis, it wasn’t just a gag order.
Along with angry rumblings about corruption and generational politics and the overnight disappearance of their classrooms, hustles, romances and political stages into error screens, the silence turned into a roar.
On September 8, Kathmandu saw something it had never seen. A protest almost entirely owned and driven by Gen Z. A phenomenon that is brand new to not just Kathmandu but the entire world. Not the youth wings of parties. Not old faces with new slogans. Just teenagers, twenty-somethings, freelancers, and creators—all ordinary kids who grew up online in the world of the internet, the world’s most public forum, who now found their digital air cut off.
As of September 9, at least 19 are dead; this new-age breed of protestors are calling it “The Final Revolution—We Are Punching Up”. A sharp slogan that has risen from Matighar to Baneshwor, from Pokhara to Biratnagar.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsSince ending the monarchy, Nepal has cycled through 13 governments in 17 years.
Nepalese have been protesting before. Against kings, against parties, against constitutions. But this? This is different. This is the first time the youngest citizens, Gen Z, have staged a movement of their own making. Their demands are not dressed up in ideology. They don’t want the monarchy back, nor are they chanting for the Left or the Right. Their politics is simpler and sharper. They want transparency, accountability, dignity and the right to scroll. To older ears this may sound trivial, but to Gen Z, born into the digital world, losing the internet is like losing language itself.
This protest reveals something profound: that Gen Z politics will not look like their parents’ politics. It will not be trapped in party offices or in opaque manifestos. It is fluid and largely leaderless. This is a new observation and lesson for the entire world.
Underestimated by the government, the extent of violence in the protests has now crossed all civil limits, with curfews descending over Kathmandu and the army patrolling the same streets that, days before, were filled with schoolbags and scooters.
What makes these protests so unique is not its violence and scale but the completely new vocabulary of resistance.
No leaders, since Gen Z now feels leadership has failed them too many times. No speeches, art as protest, creativity as defiance, poetry, songs and memes turned into placards. Digital anger and physical courage are hallmarks. When platforms were silenced, they did not collapse. Instead, they marched.
This is the politics of a generation raised in the borderless commons of the internet. A generation that feels they can sniff out hypocrisy faster than propaganda can be printed. Their anger at Nepal’s political dynasties, the “Nepo Babies” as they are calling them, did not come from textbooks; it came from a larger understanding of the world through the internet. This is what makes their politics dangerous to the old order. It is spontaneous, decentralised and impossible to co-opt. The Nepal protests are not a footnote in South Asia’s instability. They are a global telegram from Gen Z. Mute us online and we will flood the streets.
This is not limited to Nepal. From climate marches in Europe to campus protests in the US, Gen Z is defining their own personal art of defiance. But Nepal presents a different picture—a full-scale, nationwide outrage driven entirely by its youngest generation of adults, with no towering leaders and no rigid ideological affirmations.
What makes it significant is not just what they are fighting against but what they are fighting for. The right to exist politically, on their own terms.
This resentment has proved to be a blueprint for leaderless movements, showing how a protest can thrive even without hierarchy. Governments everywhere need to pay attention. Suppression may silence for a day, but Gen Z is too networked, too quick, and too global to be erased. It is a reminder to the world that dismissing voices as “too young” or “too naïve” is at your own peril.
Gen Z’s politics might be raw and messy, sometimes chaotic. However, it is still alive. They may not have manifestos yet or leaders or offices, but they have something far more dangerous to the older generations. A refusal to wait their turn.
Gen Z has seen how digital governance, the right to privacy, and platform accountability are shaping the world—banning expression backfires. Nepal’s youth revolt is both alarming and might serve as inspirational for many. The lesson to be learnt here is let’s invest in dialogue, not suppression.
The author is a freelance journalist and features writer based out of Delhi. Her main areas of focus are politics, social issues, climate change and lifestyle-related topics. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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