Bangladesh yesterday, Nepal today: The unstoppable force of youth protests

The similarities between what happened in Bangladesh and what is happening at the moment in Nepal are uncanny. In the former, students had begun protesting against the quota system of the Sheikh Hasina regime, a relatively small movement that snowballed into a storm, which swept the erstwhile Prime Minister out of power, forcing her to flee to India.

In the latter, Gen Z-led protests against a ban on social media, which proved to be transient, snowballed into a gale that went beyond control, leading to the death of at least 30 people and injuries to over 1,000. Protesters set fire to the private residences of President Ram Chandra Poudel and Prime Minister Oli; houses of former Nepali Prime Ministers Pushpa Kamal Dahal alias Prachanda and Sher Bahadur Deuba, and Energy Minister Deepak Khadka were also damaged by protesters. 

They also breached the Nepali Parliament and set the building on fire; former Nepal PM Jhala Nath Khanal's wife, Ravi Laxmi Chitrakar, was critically injured in house fire and remains in hospital under treatment. The public fury clearly showed that the social media ban was not the core issue - it was, in fact, anger against the corruption within the government and the prevalence of nepotism that had created political instability.

In both instances, it required the intervention of the army to bring back a resemblance of order.

Equally pertinent, in both cases the youthful protesters have led an effort to bring to the fore an alternative political order by selecting a universally acceptable individual to take charge in the interim. In Bangladesh it had been Mohammed Yunus, while in Nepal the process of finding an acceptable individual is ongoing, with a section of the Gen Z protesters holding talks with the army after Prime Minister Oli resigned and fled the country.

The favourite at the moment is Nepal's former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, who has been in talks with the Nepal Army Chief. Meanwhile, Gen Z protesters are still trying to reach a consensus on the final formation of the interim government. Negotiations are ongoing at multiple levels. That sanity is slowly returning to the streets of capital Kathmandu, with soldiers patrolling the streets, is signalled by the fact that the Tribhuvan international airport has been opened and flights between Delhi and Kathmandu have begun to operate.

Mean-while, speculation has become thick and fast that the army is more in favour of restoration of the deposed monarchy, fuelled by the fact that when Nepal's Army Chief, General Ashok Raj Sigdel, addressed the nation last Tuesday, a portrait of King Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of Nepal's Shah dynasty, hung prominently behind him.

Perhaps, following Bangladesh's example will not be as easy for Nepal, and there might yet be a twist to the nation’s tale