Why regimes collapse

To be truly functional and durable, even eternal, a state doesn't just need a leader, a party, or an ideology. It needs functional and robust institutions

- SHEKHAR GUPTA

Is there such a thing as a hard or a soft state? What if we said that any state is indeed just that, the state? It has to have it in its guts to stay together, cohesive, and orderly. That last is not my line. From whom it's borrowed, I'll tell you as we go along.

Take Nepal. The fall of its constitutionally elected government in just over a day of Gen Z protests in the capital is the third such in three years in the subcontinent, after Sri Lanka (Colombo, July, 2022) and Bangladesh (Dhaka, August, 2024). As we keep saying, invoking the primer of journalism, this conforms to the three-example rule. We can also note much clamour on social media, mostly from the Bharatiya Janata Party base, which includes many prominent and respected names, that this is just what the "powers that be" would want done with the Modi government in India. The regime-change toolkit, as they'd put it.

Let's also look at exceptions. Not every government collapses under a public protest. I know this is a super-provocative example, but remember Pakistan on May 9, 2023?

Imran Khan's supporters rioted not in one city but across many, even stormed Lahore's Jinnah House, the Corps Commander's home. The situation had many more ingredients for a "regime" overthrow than in Colombo, Dhaka or Kathmandu. A widely hated civilian government, the handmaiden of a then-reviled army, had jailed the most popular mass leader.

That "revolution" ended within 48 hours. The leader (Imran Khan) is still in jail, now handed a 14-year sentence, the same coalition is still in power, having been rebirthed through another rigged election, and all socio-economic and democratic grievances remain. More than 250 protest leaders are being tried in military courts. The state looks way stronger.