SPRING OF YOUTH

South Asia's Gen Z warriors are seeking to draft a new social contract to ensure that future generations may not hopelessly wait for promises to get fulfilled

- BY BADAR BASHIR

Sri Lanka burned, and so did Bangladesh, yet Nepal's rulers thought the storm would never cross the Himalayas. But discontent soon gathered into a gale that swept away the K.P. Sharma Oli government in early September. A common thread ran through all three fallen structures—the Gotabaya Rajapaksa regime in Sri Lanka, the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh and the Oli dispensation in Nepal: disillusioned youth and entrenched corruption. The rot within the establishment stoked public disenchantment, pushing a new generation to dismantle what they saw as palaces of sin.

Protesters braved tear gas, water cannons and police barricades, and defied curfews to storm palaces that had long served as the rulers' residences. In Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the heads of government fled abroad, while Nepal's prime minister took refuge in army barracks.

Over the past three years, images of frustration in these countries had been spreading rapidly across digital platforms. On July 9, 2022, large crowds barged into the presidential palace at Colombo's Galle Face. On August 5, 2024, Sheikh Hasina's residence in Dhaka was ransacked. Last month, Nepal's youth went further, torching centres of power, from the supreme court to parliament and other government buildings.

The uprisings had roots stretching back years. Large sections of unemployed youth, exposed to the idea of freer, more developed societies through relatives abroad, films and the internet, grew impatient with ageing leaders who failed to respond to their aspirations. They wanted urban amenities, economic growth, better services and a brighter future. But the gulf between the desire for equality and the lived reality of inequality pushed them further away from their rulers.