Gen Z Is So Over The Situationship

The Gen Z protesters, who toppled the Nepal government to save their country from the jaws of corruption and nepotism, have a Himalayan task ahead, with a myriad issues and interests at play

- Snigdhendu Bhattacharya IS A JOURNALIST, AUTHOR AND RESEARCHER

WHEN the 73-year-old Sushila Karki, a former Chief Justice of Nepal, was sworn-in as interim prime minister on September 12, the Himalayan nation had already witnessed days of violence in the wake of the killing of Gen Z protesters in police firing on September 8. Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina's ouster last year had left the neighbouring country in a similar situation for weeks.

In Nepal, there was widespread destruction of private and public property. Several thousand convicts, including many sentenced for heinous crimes, escaped from prisons across the country, including the capital city Kathmandu. There were no police at their stations or on the streets. Most law enforcement infrastructure had been vandalised and left defunct. There was nobody to record complaints or come to the aid of those facing acts of vandalism.

However, violence deescalated in Nepal as quickly as it had escalated. No major violence has been reported in a week since Karki was sworn in, even though some incidents of crimes at local levels have been reported from different parts of the country.

Protesters in their teens and 20s choosing a septuagenarian as interim head of government may sound puzzling. But there is a reason a consensus was arrived at on her name. During her tenure as a Supreme Court judge, including as the Chief Justice, she had many run-ins with the political establishment, but did not bend. She was among the first civil society personalities to visit the spot of the September 8 firing, the very next morning, and spoke to the mourning protesters.