Asia's first digital battlefield: When the screen became the street in Nepal

Social media was at the heart of the protests. There are also suggestions that a foreign hand was involved.

- Ravi Velloor

Nepal’s hardy hillsmen are regarded as among the most famous mercenaries of our times, leading the charge when Britain asserted its rights over the Falklands and participating in every war India’s military has fought since Independence. In peacetime, they guard vital installations, including in Singapore and Brunei.

Who would have thought that they would turn so ferociously on their own government, turning a protest over access to social media into a battlefield — literally, in this case. I covered the first People’s Movement that ousted the absolute monarchy of the late King Birendra Bikram Shah in 1990, and the second movement that persuaded his younger brother and successor King Gyanendra to leave the palace and become an ordinary civilian.

The second movement in 2006 was severely violent towards its denouement. Yet, what was seen in September was unprecedented in scale and viciousness for a civil protest in Nepal.

For a quick recap, this is what unfolded in the landlocked former Hindu kingdom shortly after Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli returned from attending the Victory Day parade in Beijing and ordered a ban on 26 social media platforms, with the notable exception of TikTok. His decision unleashed rage in the populous Kathmandu Valley, and youth groups ~ the so-called Gen Z — organised a protest on Sept 8.

Met with brutal force, the valley ignited and within hours the rest of the country did, as well. On the second day, anecdotal and video evidence suggests that mobs of older people had taken over the pillaging and arson. By the last count, more than 70 people have died and the death toll will likely rise since some bodies possibly still remain inside charred buildings. Even the wives of former prime ministers were not spared the attacks.