The Generation Z revolution is spreading across Asia

Signs of revolution are visible on the streets of Kathmandu. Stains of dried blood on the sidewalks washed away by late monsoon rains; broken dishes inside the looted residences of politicians; the stench of smoke from burning public buildings.

But the inscription in black marker on the marble wall of the parliament building, which was set ablaze in the Nepalese capital last Sunday, best captures the current moment: "From now on, only the youth of Generation Z will be here. Corrupt leaders will be expelled from the country. Long live Nepal. Long live Generation Z."

The demonstrations in Nepal have been dubbed a "Generation Z" protest - which generally refers to people born between 1997 and 2012 - after young people, some in school uniforms, took to the streets against what they see as an aging and corrupt political elite.

After two days of deadly and destructive protests, Prime Minister Kagda Prasad Sharma Oli resigned last Tuesday. Police said on Friday that the death toll in the nationwide unrest had reached 51, with nearly 1.400 people injured.

The first protests erupted over a government ban on the use of leading social media platforms, but they became a tipping point in long-standing dissatisfaction with politicians and their families, who the public sees as corrupt.

"We just came to protest against corruption," said Anjali Shah, a 24-year-old law student who watched as police fired live ammunition at some of her fellow protesters. "We thought they could ban us from the internet, but we could still be on the streets, demonstrating against the government, demanding to know how our taxes are being spent, how they have this lifestyle on a civil servant's salary while we barely survive."

Nepal, where the median age of the population is 25, below the Asian average of 32, illustrates a growing regional trend in which older leaders from Oli's generation come into conflict with disenfranchised, ambitious and often unemployed young people, fed up with business as usual politics and a lack of opportunities.

It's just the latest "domino" to fall.

Amid a severe economic crisis in Sri Lanka in 2022, tens of thousands of protesters, mostly young, poured into Colombo, the commercial capital, and occupied the presidential palace. Then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, now 76, fled the country on a military plane to the Maldives.

Two years later, in Bangladesh, students at Dhaka University led a massive popular uprising that ultimately forced the authoritarian ruler, 77-year-old Sheikh Hasina, to flee to India.

Indonesia briefly looked like it might be next last month. Students took to the streets after news that lawmakers had granted themselves lavish housing allowances of $3.000 a month - ten times the minimum wage in the capital, Jakarta - at a time of general economic weakness. President Prabowo Subianto, 73, managed to quell the unrest by scrapping the perks and sacking the finance minister.

The common factor in all these uprisings is the aging and entrenched political classes in developing Asian countries, where the younger generation sees the fruits of growth once again ending up in the hands of elites, rather than improving their lives. Youth unemployment in these countries is high, as is corruption. While each wave of protests is unique and specific, some experts see them as connected.

"Across the region, Gen Z is sending a signal to political leaders that they want change. These young people also don't have the same reverent attitude towards political leaders that the older generation may have had," says Shafqat Munir, a senior fellow at the Bangladesh Institute for Peace and Security Studies in Dhaka. "Today's Gen Z has a global view of the world, they see what's happening in other countries. For them, the internet is not just a means of communication, it's literally a bloodline that can ignite a storm."

The Nepalese Marie Antoinette moment and the line "let them eat cake" came straight from social media.

A few weeks before the ban, videos were circulating on Instagram and TikTok purporting to show off expensive cars, handbags, and vacations by politicians' children, with hashtags like #NepoKid and #NepoBabies.

Images of supposedly lavish lifestyles among powerful families have proven inflammatory in a country that ranks 107th out of 180 countries on Transparency International's annual corruption index and where the per capita income of $1.400 a year, according to the World Bank, is lower than in all of its South Asian neighbors except Afghanistan.

"The citizens have no salt. And you have to eat from gold and silver plates," reads an Instagram post showing the descendants of some senior Nepali officials drinking champagne.

Law student Shah says: "The starting point of this movement was a trend on social media exposing 'Nepo Kids' - children of politicians who have lavish lifestyles and brag about them on social media, while we struggle with not having safe drinking water, not having jobs, not having opportunities in a country with very high levels of corruption."

Some of the protesters on the streets of this Himalayan nation, nestled between India and China, are too young to remember the last time Nepal was rocked by a wave of protests that brought radical change. The 2006 uprising paved the way for a former autocratic king to end a 239-year-old monarchy.

The starting point of the movement was a trend on social media exposing 'Nepo Kids' - children of politicians who have a lavish lifestyle and brag about it on social media, while we struggle with not having safe drinking water, not having jobs, not having opportunities in a country with a very high level of corruption.

But despite promises of a "new Nepal," the republican era has not brought stability to a country marked by a decade-long civil war. Since then, it has had more than a dozen governments, with many of the same political players remaining on the scene - including Oli, who has served as prime minister four times - fueling growing frustration among a new generation that has grown up seeing their hopes for reform crushed by the old guard.

"The state has continued to be insensitive to the concerns of ordinary citizens, and the prime ministers and political elite have continued to act as if they were the new kings, convinced that no one can challenge them," says Amish Raj Mulmi, a Kathmandu-based political writer and author of All Roads Lead North: Nepal's Turn to China. "This frustration, this anger, exploded last week, as it has in other countries where youth discontent has been widespread, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and, more recently, Indonesia."

In Bangladesh, the unrest began with protests against a quota system for public sector employment, which was seen as favoring the then-ruling Awami League party.

"But it quickly became clear that this was about something much bigger," says Nahid Islam, leader of Bangladesh's National Civic Party, which emerged from student groups that led the "Monsoon Revolution" last year. "It was a rejection of a fascist political order, entrenched corruption and an old style of politics that no longer served the people - but only the regime's loyalists and the ruling dynasty."

There, as in Nepal, the government’s harsh response further inflames the situation. Police and security forces violently suppressed the protests, firing live ammunition into the crowd and targeting students. About 1.400 people were killed, but protesters continued to take to the streets despite the danger. A similar situation occurred in Indonesia, where protests escalated after a police vehicle ran over and killed a 21-year-old motorcycle delivery man who worked through an app in central Jakarta.

"His death only added fuel to the fire because it symbolized the way the rich and powerful trample on the weak and poor," says Ahmad Sukarsono, deputy director at consultancy Control Risks.

Just like in Nepal, he adds, the behavior of Indonesian lawmakers who have lost touch with reality, corruption scandals involving government officials, and a social media culture that "celebrates flaunting elite status even as protests were already underway across the country - all of this pushed public anger to a boiling point."

At least 10 people were killed in the demonstrations, during which several regional parliament buildings were set on fire. Angry mobs raided and looted the homes of then Finance Minister Sri Muljani Indravati and several MPs.

"If parliamentarians truly fulfill their role as representatives of the people, they will be more sensitive to the real suffering that people are going through," says Devi Fortuna Anwar, a professor at Indonesia's National Agency for Research and Innovation, but they "live in their own little bubble."

South and Southeast Asian countries typically have a higher proportion of young people than the global average, according to UN data. For example, in 2023, the 15-24 age group made up a fifth of Nepal's population, above the global average of 15,6 percent.

A young population should be an economic asset, bringing innovation, technological skills, new ideas and an energetic workforce. Yet in some parts of Asia, the supposed demographic dividend is still not visible. Not enough jobs are being created to absorb what could be a productive workforce.

According to estimates by the Nepalese Ministry of Foreign Employment, about 700.000 Nepalese have recently left the country annually in search of a better future, mostly going to wealthy Gulf countries, depleting the population of 29 million.

Remittances sent by migrants from abroad have played a key role in Nepal's economic growth, according to the World Bank, but this "has not translated into quality jobs at home, but has perpetuated a cycle of lost opportunities and the continued exodus of many Nepalis."

According to the UN's International Labour Organization, more than 80 percent of the workforce in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nepal is employed informally. Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high: the unemployment rate among 15-24 year-olds in Sri Lanka was around 22 percent last year, while in Nepal it was 21 percent - above the global average.

"Youth discontent in parts of Asia is primarily a consequence of the corrupt and authoritarian character of the regime, but it also reflects socioeconomic frustration," said Christophe Jafrello, a South Asia expert at Sciences Po in Paris. "Inequalities are growing everywhere, between the super-rich and impoverished young middle-class people hit by unemployment."

But these youth have grown into a force to be reckoned with. In Bangladesh, they have formed the National Civic Party, which will contest elections next year and promises, if it wins, to draft a new democratic constitution for the country.

In Sri Lanka, the youth vote was crucial in the surprise election last year of leftist outsider Anura Kumara Dissanayake as president. The 56-year-old has promised to end corruption and end the privileges of the country's elites.

In Nepal, representatives of Generation Z groups have succeeded in getting former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki, who is considered untainted by corruption, to take over the leadership of the interim government, in an attempt to fend off those seeking to appropriate their Himalayan revolution.

The streets of Kathmandu are now quiet. While a maze of military checkpoints stand between the wreckage of burned cars and the smoldering remains of government buildings, young people are "trying to rebuild our country right now," says Sudan Gurung, one of the leaders of the "Generation Z" movement.

Things were already moving: at Karki's request, the president quickly dissolved parliament and called new general elections, scheduled for March.

"What Gen Z has in common is our age group and dissatisfaction. We came out to protest corruption and demand accountability and transparency from politicians," says Jatiš Odža, another Gen Z protester. "We were somewhat influenced by our neighbors in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh."

Twenty-five-year-old Odža admits that in the capital, "we never thought that we would overthrow an entire political regime in just two days."

Prepared by: NB