Host: Ezgi Toper
Guests: Sahas Prajapati, Professor Chandra Lal Pandey

Producer: Ezgi Toper
Craft Editor: Nasrullah Yilmaz
Production Team: Afzal Ahmed, Mucteba Samil Olmez, Khaled Selim
Executive Producer: Nasra Omar Bwana

Transcript

SAHAS: I think this is like a total combination of overall the oppression that the Nepalese people have felt throughout the years. It's just like a pot being broken after it was full. And it was throughout Nepal. From a local student like Gen Z organisation organising a simple movement to becoming a national movement 

EZG: You’re listening to ‘In The Newsroom’ and I’m Ezgi Toper. In this podcast, we have conversations with colleagues and experts that go beyond the headlines. This week, Nepal was thrown into a political crisis after a wave of protests that started online spilt onto the streets. 

It all began with years of pent-up anger over corruption and inequality, but the final spark was a sudden ban on dozens of social media platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, and even LinkedIn. In two days, things escalated with government buildings set ablaze after at least 25 people were killed in a deadly crackdown by police.

Shortly after, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli resigned. Now, Nepal is facing political uncertainty as parties continue to negotiate over who will step in to form the next government. 

A day after protesters declared victory in ousting the government on September 9th, I spoke to my colleague Sahas Prajapati from Nepal. He tells us what’s happening on the ground currently.

What have you witnessed on the ground? What is the atmosphere like there right now?

SAHAS: It's hopeful. And now it's a time of recovery after yesterday's incident. So all the people, they are joining hands together and they're scraping together whatever destruction that took place yesterday and I see the Gen Z youths who orchestrated the revolution they are here collecting and like rebuilding, helping the rebuild process after the fall of the government.

So after the riots, there were a lot of looting happening, a lot of prisoners escaped from the jails, prisons, and there are a lot of scattered guns and equipments all over the place, and that has caused like an environment of fear for the public.

EZGI: To really understand how Nepal has arrived at this moment in history, I spoke to Professor Chandra Lal Pandey, who teaches public policy at Kathmandu University.

CHANDRA: People, you know, started to feel like democracy is not functioning in Nepal very well. Only three people, three political parties and chiefs of political parties, are manipulating everything, saying that that is democratic practice, but they are not even, you know, taking consideration of their own MPs' voices also, not about people.

And the rule of law wasn't functioning, right? People felt that, well, OK, for political elite, there's one kind of rule. For the general public, there's another kind of rule. And democracy is just lip service. Rule of law is just lip service. That's what the people felt.

Long-standing, very much visible and institutionalised corruption in Nepal, right? That's one of the most important things that this Gen Z group has highlighted. And apart from that, nepotism, partism in appointments in all bodies of states, such as judiciary, security forces, bureaucracy, constitutional bodies, even universities, top leadership, let's say.

Although they have a lot of love for Nepal and they want to stay back in Nepal and want to do something, but they keep saying, OK, once I graduate, how do you get a job? How do I start my business? Because there's so much nepotism and capitalism. There's so much corruption. If you want to start, let's say, entrepreneurship, any kind of entrepreneurship, then you need to go from one office to another. Maybe you need to again give some money to this, you know, bureaucrats, right, those kinds of things. So, they had this frustration in the classroom also and overall in Nepal with youths.

EZGI: Young Nepalis would typically voice their frustrations online, but this changed in late August. The Nepali government gave international tech companies a final warning: either register inside Nepal, appoint local representatives, and agree to remove content flagged by the state within 24 hours or face a ban. 

Some apps like TikTok had already complied. But when others pushed back, the government pulled the trigger, and twenty-six platforms went dark overnight.

At the same time, frustration was already brewing over a viral campaign #NepoBaby. It called out the children of the rich and powerful who seemed to benefit from privilege and corruption while ordinary citizens struggled. 

SAHAS: As Nepali people, they have struggled for the daily amenities like living the day-to-day lives. The politicians, they serve under a limited budget like they have a limited salary, but we can see the children they are living lavish lifestyles, buying like expensive goods, spending their holidays on foreign vacations, and that raises the questions like where are they getting the money from?

So there was a recent trend called #Nepobabies, #NepoKids, #NepoKidsofPoliticians. So we were inspired like from – I think it came from Indonesia. They were also exposing the political children, how they are misusing the public funds for their own lifestyles. This was one of the ways that the Gen Z were voicing the growing frustration towards the government, right? And on top of this, when there was the 26 media ban that came suddenly into effect. The Gen Z youth felt like their voices were being oppressed.

And there was a group called Hami Nepal. Through Discord, they organised the protest on September 8th in which they provided a framework like this is how we should protest. We should wear a school uniform – all the youths. Only people from 18 to 28 or something like that, the age range was limited, and we wanted only students and the Gen Z youths who were the youth of the nation to be involved in the protest. We do not want any political affiliations, no political parties to be involved, and they requested everyone to wear school uniforms, bring school backpacks, right, to be available as a student, to be a youth of the nation. And that was the call for action on September 8th.

They showed up to show their dissatisfaction in masses in other cities as well. It was not just a single city. And it was throughout Nepal. It became a national movement from a local student like Gen Z organisation, organising a simple movement to becoming a national movement and like toppling the government.

EZGI: The Himalayan country, which is wedged between India and China, has struggled with political and economic instability since protests led to the abolition of its monarchy in 2008. But Professor Pandey says the scale of recent escalations is unlike anything the country has seen.

CHANDRA: This is very unprecedented in the sense of, you know, this Gen Z generation, right? You know, Gen Z, political elites, they kept thinking that they always stay home, they don't come out, they are something lazy. This is what they kept thinking. A person between 12 to 28 is the most important person in terms of development. So they never realised it, right? That's the first thing. So if we interpret it from the perspective of the Gen Z movement, this type of movement never happened in the past in Nepal. 

EZGI: This all happened in a span of two days. I think a lot of us around the world are very shocked by that kind of immediate outcome. How do you think this was brought about so quickly?

CHANDRA: We also in the beginning thought that the first day there would be not many, many people, and second day, third day maybe it would last for one week and a lot of people would be in the street, but it did not happen in that way. All of a sudden, the first day, the participation was so huge that that was beyond imagination.

In the beginning, what we saw was very much, organised peaceful protest, right? So people started to protest from 9 am in the morning, and then many people, you know, more people, more young people in school dress uniforms, also a lot of people started to come. And they moved from one particular point to this, this parliament house, right? And then that's where, you know, people, they used force.

SAHAS: The police, they did not take into consideration the human souls there. They were firing directly into the heads and centre body mass area. Vital organs were targeted. It was not warning shots. It was straight shots.

Nineteen people lost their lives that day. It was a very bad mismanagement of authority and during that protest. Many children lost their lives. There was even a 12-year-old child who was returning from school who got shot and killed.

CHANDRA: And then about 14 people were critically injured, about 347 people were injured and they were in different hospitals. And when we saw, you know, the scene and the very much brutal, use of force on these young people in uniforms. That, in fact, enraged their parents and the whole Nepali community.

And next day, even if government imposed curfew in the country, nobody, you know, obeyed curfew and they disobeyed curfew and they were in the street.

The next day there was not only Generation Z, parents, everybody, from a small child to old people. Let's say 80 years old - 85 years old, like all of these people were in the street and everywhere all over Nepal. Therefore, the protest was in such a size that government was not able to handle it at all.

SAHAS: Unfortunately, with a riot, mass revolution such as that, there can be like infiltration by some other political parties and other third parties who were like involved and it turned out from a protest to a riot, and it destroyed a lot of public properties and we know like the parliament is no more.

We don't have many historical landmarks such as like Singa Darva of Nepal. It's a very historical place and it was used for the executive body, and that was also burned to the ground, and the Supreme Court is also burned to the ground today, and many politicians were they were beaten. They were taken to the street, right, and their houses were burned. Many of their malls were looted. So I think this is like a total combination of overall. The oppression that the Nepalese people have failed throughout the years, it's just like a pot being broken after it was full.

EZGI: The protesters blocked roads and set fires to parliament and other government buildings. During the unrest, the prime minister announced his resignation in a letter to the president. Crowds also ransacked the prime minister’s residence, and social media footage showed government officials and their relatives being airlifted to safety using army helicopters.

The United Nations rights chief, Volker Turk, said he was “appalled” by the violence and called for talks, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the headquarters of a major publisher was burning, and called on “protesters not to target journalists”. But now the calm after the storm is settling in, so what’s next?

There is a power vacuum that has opened up. How do you view this? Is it potentially exciting as a new opportunity to rebuild and reshape Nepal's politics, or is it potentially concerning?

SAHAS: It brings into question like who we are going to trust further and a few names are on top. So a few of the people, such as Bain Saha, who is the mayor of Kathmandu. And a few others are like Sumanareshta or Kasamang. So these are like politicians who are doing in their local level, they are doing, without any political affiliations, they are bringing their own upwards. So we can see their effort and their work style.

And many of the people, like they are the popular choice right now to form an interim government to bring forward a proper constitution. In our site, like a systematic government. And I believe it's hopeful since a government led by youth is what we want. So, before what was happening was, 60, 70 years old politicians, they were playing like musical chairs. I will stay prime minister for like 6 months, you get it after 6 months, then it's it's done. They were just the political instability was so bad that there are almost like 17 to 18 prime ministers in 15 years, so they are just changing the prime minister's seat continuously, and that was the reason people were getting frustrated, nothing was getting done 

EZGI: On Thursday, thousands attended a virtual meeting on social platform Discord to discuss their varied agendas and debate who should represent them. According to reports, there were conflicting arguments, and several names were proposed. 

Some representatives say Nepal’s former chief justice Sushila Karki is the leading candidate to head a transitional government. But as Professor Pancey points out the protesters are not one single party and therefore their choices are far from unanimous.

CHANDRA: Gen Z does not have any kind of Individual leader. They don't have any specific leadership there. And who is Gen Z, who is the leader of Gen Z fact? That's one crisis that we are seeing now, right? Because now

The chief of military and the president they invited Gen Z, you know, representatives so that they could sit in talks and then figure out how to go to future direction. But then I came to know today also, you know, 16 people they went to see the chief of army today also, and he advised them, OK, at least 1 or 2 people, you decide who is your leader and you come. So one thing is deciding their own leadership. That's one thing, right?

And second thing, which is another important thing is, do we really follow our constitution any longer or do we go outside constitution now, for example, extraconstitutional situation, right, what we call the doctrine of necessity, something like that because these youths, they were tired up political system, political parties, political elites, and then, you know, they fought against it, right? And now do we follow the same constitution and allow these, you know, MPs again to be prime minister and the ministers, or do we go out of this system, right?

If we go there, then maybe first of all, President he needs to dissolve parliament, right? And then he needs to declare emergency and then decide who is going to be the chairman of this new cabinet and who are going to be other members of the cabinet, right? 

But then we need an interim or take a government in consultation with Gen Z because we cannot put them outside because this is their movement, this is their change. At the same time, other parties, for example, we have, you know, other, other stakeholders except Gen Z, we have large population 3 Kaor people in Nepal, right? So 30 million people in Nepal. So someone who can be picked up so that that person can, can make, happy almost everybody, right? In that person's leadership, I think our government needs to be formed up and then it needs to work on. Elections that can be held as soon as possible in a democratic system and then hand over to that, you know, democratic government.

What Gen Z wanted, it has been achieved, right? Now it's time to think about the future and how we can make, you know, Nepali's future, Gen Z's future better. We need to focus on those kinds of things. So I request all to restrain from violence, but then I encourage Gen Z to hold their issues very strongly and not let any political parties capture their issues and be careful on that.

EZGI: For now, Nepal is at a crossroads. The dramatic resignation of the prime minister opened a power vacuum, but also a rare opportunity to rebuild a system that many saw as broken. Whether this energy leads to lasting reform will depend on what happens in the coming days. But one thing is clear: a new generation has made its voice impossible to ignore. 

Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, I’m Ezgi Toper, and this was “In the Newsroom”.