Warning signs from Nepal for the political class

After Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it is now the turn of Nepal as yet another South Asian country where a popular rebellion has dethroned the ruling government and triggered a public backlash about the political class.

If in Sri Lanka, the uprising was against the stranglehold, and resultant corruption, of one political family over the affairs of the country, it was the collective anger against power abuse and fudged elections that led to the populace coming out on the streets against the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh.

The immediate trigger for the uprising in Nepal was the ban on social media, though the outpour was seen as a result of the pent-up anger against widespread corruption, abuse of power, nepotism and the political class seen to be failing the nation on all fronts.

Like in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the popular protests saw ‘elected’ governments being overthrown and new regimes being installed with the armed forces playing the role of catalyst and stabiliser in all three cases.

It is, however, only Sri Lanka that has seen a smooth transition so far to a new, popularly elected government and has enabled political stability in the country. Bangladesh continues to reel in turmoil with the prospects of elections, promised in February 2026, still remaining uncertain.

The interim government, headed by Nobel awardee Muhammed Yunus, operates on shaky grounds with its political legitimacy increasingly eroding even as Islamist groups like the Jamaat-e-Islami, once a political pariah, are emerging as the new power centre.

The transition to an interim government was quicker in Nepal as the Army quelled the riots, opened a reconciliation pathway, and installed an interim government with a retired judge, who is seen to be a widely accepted face, even though there are reports of opposition from some sections.

Equally, the rapid transition to the interim also led to doubts about a potential conspiracy, internally-schemed or externally-inspired, whether vested interests were at work, and the many motivations that would have worked behind the uprising, said to be spearheaded by Gen Z of the country, but clearly involving many other actors.  

But nationwide protests do not usually happen in a jiffy, without a clarion call from powerful and influential forces who can mobilise people and organise movements.

The Gen Z protestors were said to be provoked by the social media ban, which was seen to be the tipping point for the protests. However, a groundswell of resentment was already building up in the Nepali society thanks to widespread corruption, nepotism and abuse of power by the ruling elite, which, incidentally, comprises Communists who came to power after years of armed struggle against the Monarchy.

A schoolgirl being knocked down by a minister’s car and a callous response from the government are also said to be among the reasons why the protests started by Gen Z spread like wildfire across the Himalayan country.

While a prominent pro-government Indian journalist screamed on his television channel that the protests were a handiwork of the ‘deep state’ in the US and western nations, some left circles in India saw in it a possible conspiracy by the Indian right wing to oust the Communist leadership in Kathmandu, propelled by the Indian ‘deep state.’

The multiple conspiracy theories aside, the Nepal protests, the violence that ensued and the inhuman manner in which top political leaders and ministers were attacked on the streets, their houses burned down and ransacked, have sent jitters in the region, and particularly among the mandarins in South Block.

Sections of the social media were quick to pick up the Nepal protests as a harbinger of things to come in India, pointing to the protests in Bihar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). It was being pointed out that votes being stolen or the electoral franchise being made meaningless could lead to resentment and popular protests, if not satisfactorily addressed by the concerned authorities.

While many were alluding to the Anna Hazare protests in the pre-2014 years, others feel the Indian political ecosystem does not favour public movements anymore, as was evident in the lack of public enthusiasm for protest campaigns that emerged from the farmers' strike and opposition to the Agnipath policy, among others.

Beyond these factors, the events in Nepal, echoing from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, spell out clear signs to the demagogues in the region who are seen to be treating democracy as a beanbag that could be twisted and stretched to suit their political and electoral conveniences. The future of credible democratic building in this region will greatly weigh upon political leaderships to address the fault lines that have emerged along these lines:

Elections need to be credible: In Sri Lanka, the Rajapakse family’s continuous grip on power and browbeating of opponents has had its effect in the politics of the nation, marked by multiple constitutional crises, a wave of majoritarianism, corruption and economic instability.

That the people came out on the streets just two years after this political clan gained absolute power in the 2019-2020 elections was a testament to how even a popularly elected government could lose credibility if driven by a legacy of power abuse and seen to be running a kleptocracy.

In Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina too was seen as an autocrat after continuous terms in office, jailing opponents, clamping down on dissent and presiding over economic decay. In the January 2024 elections, which Hasina won by a landslide, the turnout was at a historic low even as the opposition parties boycotted the polls.

Having eroded the credibility of democratic elections, it was just a matter of time for popular uprisings to emerge in a country known for its volatile and violent policies, and drive her out of power.

In Nepal, the mainstream communist parties that came to power after the Maoist movement dethroned the Monarchy had failed to bring political stability to the country. Marked by infighting, splits and power-sharing deals, the Communists were seen to be power-mongering, with alliances forming and breaking, especially between the 2022 and 2024 elections.

What seemed to have infuriated the populace was the deviation to riches and personal wealth that the Communists and their allies had built while in power, even as much of the country was struggling to make ends meet.

Like in the other two cases, the uprising in Nepal, also coming in the matter of months after the recent elections, shows how popular mandates cannot be held as a barometer of acceptance for a political party, coalition, or ideology by the citizenry.

The recent allegations of ‘vote chori’ made by the opposition, and initiatives like the Special Intensive Revision in Bihar, whose credibility and intention have been challenged, also raise similar questions in India on whether ruling regimes are seeking to manipulate the electoral franchise in order to sustain them in power.  

Nepal, then, serves as a warning, as much as the events in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The old guard and the deep state: It is natural to see the youth of each of these countries coming out onto the streets to protest the political dispensation. The youth are the most affected by the country’s economic turns, with unemployment being a common thread that affects societies in the region.

While ‘nepo kids’ or the extensive nepotism has been an underlying factor in the Nepal protests, this is a common factor affecting most of the South Asian societies, where the ruling elite and their kin are seen to be beneficiaries of power.

The larger message, though, is about the old guard hanging on to power in all of these South Asian nations, where the youth do not see themselves as a stakeholder in power. That the far and few who make it are the kin of the political families only aggravates this gap.

This as a driving factor was evident in all recent strife. If it was Gen Z that led the agitation in Nepal, it was mostly university students who spearheaded the protests in Bangladesh. While the Bangladeshi agitating students have formed a party of their own, the students' wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami is also reported to be gaining ground in Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, a comparatively younger Marxist leader has brought the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna to power for the first time in Sri Lankan history.  

In all South Asian countries, the old guard has always prevailed in running the political establishment, aided by the bureaucracies that quite always served as the ‘deep state’ with vested interests of their own. In India, for instance, the nation now debates, at least latently, the 75th birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who set the same age for retirement from politics but has refused to apply the same benchmark for himself.

In The Polity’s report of March 2025, A PS-II for PM Modi: Time ripe to ‘retire’ the ‘old guard, we had talked about how the Indian governance system is steered by a group of septuagenarians and octogenarians. Whereas in the Western systems, younger officials and professionals spearhead governance, the Modi government continues to pivot retired officials in key governance and leadership roles.

The need to retire the ‘old guard’ and bring in young and fresh blood, be it in governance, politics, or other critical affairs of the country, is yet to dawn upon the Indian political leadership.

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The 'Good' Taliban is here

In the first edition of Delhi Diary in January 2025, we had described how India found its ‘good Taliban. For years, India rejected the idea that there was a ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ Taliban. With deep wounds of the past, in particular the IC-814 hijack of December 1999, the Indian establishment could never have conceived of the hardline Islamist force ever having a ‘good’ side.

However, ever since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban regime has turned against its former mentor, Pakistan, with the Tehrik-e-Taliban, a UN-proscribed group, but with representation in the dispensation in Kabul, unleashing attacks against the Pakistan Army. This realignment in equations had opened the doors for engagement with India, initially under the guise of development assistance.

After initial technical meetings with officials stationed in Kabul, India established the first high-level diplomatic contact with the Taliban regime when the Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri met an Afghan delegation headed by its acting Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai on 8th January 2025.

However, the big breakthrough came when the External Affairs Minister (EAM) Dr S. Jaishankar spoke to his counterpart Muttaqi on 16th May 2025, thanking him for his support to India and condemnation of the Pahalgam massacre. The Taliban regime’s condemnation was conveyed through a senior Indian diplomat, Anand Prakash, who was received by Muttaqi in Kabul on 27th April.

With de facto diplomatic relations restored and intensifying through such high-level engagements, the next step is for the Taliban Foreign Minister Muttaqi’s planned visit to India, which, though, has been hindered by the delay or absence of a waiver from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), which had proscribed Muttaqi in 2001.

It is reported that Pakistan, which is currently holding the chair of the 1988 sanctions committee of the UNSC, which oversees the implementation of the sanctions and travel bans, is blocking the waiver. Nonetheless, there are reports that India might go ahead with the planning for Muttaqi’s visit, as backdoor diplomatic efforts seem to be in full swing to get the waiver.

Western diplomats are reportedly apprehensive that Muttaqi’s visit to India will provide the regime with its much-sought legitimacy amid concerns of human rights violations and curbs on women’s rights and access to education for Afghan girls, which continue to be highly restricted by the Taliban regime.

Diplomatic sources in Delhi, who talked to The Polity on condition of anonymity, have, however, ruled out the possibility of India providing a formal recognition to the Taliban regime. Nonetheless, many foreign policy watchers assumed that such recognition may happen in the not-so-distant future, going by the strategic gains India perceives by having the Taliban regime on its side.

In a significant strategic move, Russia became the first country to recognise the Taliban government in July this year. This is a significant move, with many observers feeling that Beijing will be next in line, as China was the first country to accredit a Taliban-nominated official as Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Beijing in 2023. The accreditation, it was then widely felt, was to be a precursor to the formal recognition.

In fact, Beijing had hailed Moscow’s decision to recognise the Taliban government, which is another indicator of a similar action by the Chinese government. Such a move by Beijing could prompt New Delhi to consider a similar move, going by the current realignments in global politics, mainly the Russia-India-China axis gaining momentum.

In the meantime, a Taliban official, the Deputy Minister of Medicine and Food, Hamdullah Zahid, had visited India to participate in an exhibition on healthcare in early September, which signals a lively diplomatic corridor being built between Delhi and Kabul in the run-up to Muttaqi’s anticipated visit.

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