NEPAL'S LESSON: USE YOUTH FURY FOR RENEWAL

The simmering social tensions in Pakistan make it susceptible to an upheaval like the recent one in Nepal. Dhaka, Kathmandu and the Arab Spring can teach us how not to handle such uprisings

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THE recent convulsion in Nepal began as a backlash against a social media ban and rapidly became something far largera Gen Z eruption that struck at the symbols of state and elite power, left scores dead, and ended with the prime minister's resignation and the army moving into the capital to restore order. Reports showed protesters breaching and setting fire to government installations and homes of senior leaders-an intensity and a degree of targeted action that reads less like improvisation and more like careful preparation, while the intelligence community's inability to foresee the build-up remains puzzling.

In Kathmandu's compact political geography, the police's apparent retreat from key posts and the delayed arrival of specialised units created a vacuum the uprising filled; by then, the spectacle of elite residences and state buildings under attack had already rewritten the political map. A resigned police and army attitude is a blessing at times, as it was here because it helped dilute the anger.

What we are watching is not simply the recycling of old grievances, but the emergence of a new template of dissent. Gen Z operates differently-decentralised digital natives organised through viral content, encrypted chats, and ad hoc collectives rather than through political parties or charismatic hierarchies. The movement's leaderless mechanics nobody to arrest to decapitate the revolt, no single body to negotiate with recall political scientist Gene Sharp's ideas on decentralised resistance, now updated with social media as the organising architecture. That very structure is liberating for protesters and destabilising for states, because it makes pre-emptive intelligence harder and reactive governance clumsier.