On the AIAC podcast, we speak with Feyzi Ismail about Nepal’s Gen Z uprising that toppled the ruling establishment.
In September 2025, Nepal experienced one of the most significant waves of political unrest in its recent history. Led largely by Gen Z protesters, the movement brought down the governing coalition and forced a national reckoning with the failures of a political class that had long promised transformation but delivered little. Coming nearly two decades after the end of the Maoist civil war and the abolition of the monarchy, the uprising was not just about corruption or unemployment—it was about a deeper sense of betrayal. What had happened to the revolution?
In this episode, editor William Shoki speaks to Feyzi Ismail, a political scientist and longtime observer of Nepalese politics, about what the uprising revealed—and what might come next. Together, they trace the longue durée of struggle in Nepal, from the armed insurgency and the resulting fragile peace, to the rise and demobilization of the Maoists, to today’s fractured political landscape. What does the Gen Z rebellion tell us about the future of left politics in Nepal? What kind of economic or geopolitical program could emerge from this moment? And is it possible to imagine a new political formation rising from the ashes of disillusionment?
Listen to the show and read a transcript below, and subscribe on your favorite platform.
- William Shoki
Feyzi, thank you very much for coming onto the Africa Is a Country podcast.
- Feyzi Ismail
Thanks for inviting me—it’s a pleasure, absolutely.
- William Shoki
It’s interesting to be having this conversation with you now. Just last week, I spoke with Sungu Oyoo, a Kenyan socialist who is running for president there, and we discussed Kenya’s own Gen Z uprisings, which took place last year and this year. Having that conversation against the backdrop of what was happening in Nepal was striking. So I wanted to start by asking you—especially for listeners who might not have been paying close attention, given how overwhelming the news cycle is these days—if you could walk us through what happened over those two days in Nepal. We saw an inspired movement of young people bring down an entire political establishment. In the international press, familiar terms were used—like in Kenya, this too was described as a Gen Z revolution. The ostensible trigger was a social media ban, but the protests quickly expanded to take on a range of other demands. Could you set the scene for us? What were the immediate triggers, and what deeper context produced the uprising?
- Feyzi Ismail
Yes, as you say, the trigger—or at least the pretext—was the social media ban. The Nepal government had announced the banning of 26 social media sites—so, the familiar ones: Facebook, Instagram, even WhatsApp. That was the spark, and that’s how it’s been portrayed in much of the media. The government gave these corporations a week to register locally, and of course most of them didn’t. So the government was about to institute the ban when the protests broke out—and very quickly, within days, they reversed course. I would call it an uprising. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a revolution, but it was certainly an uprising.
Of course, you have to look at the context in which this is taking place. I think what’s clear—even in the mainstream press—is that it wasn’t just about social media. This movement was coming off the back of decades of anger and resentment toward the political elite and the mainstream political parties. That includes the three main ones: the Nepali Congress; the UML, or Unified Marxist-Leninist Party; and the Maoists, the Communist Party of Nepal. The anger was particularly directed at KP Oli, who was the prime minister and came from the UML. His leadership style was extremely authoritarian. Under his rule, dissent was routinely cracked down on, corruption flourished, and he himself was widely implicated. The gap between rich and poor widened significantly—Nepal saw its first billionaire just over a decade ago, while life for the vast majority of people hasn’t really improved.
Nepal is, of course, famously dependent on remittances. It’s one of the top remittance-receiving countries as a share of GDP. That inflow has kept people surviving, but it hasn’t led to transformative change in people’s lives. Remittances are used largely for daily survival. Some families have managed to buy land and so on, but the vast majority remain deeply dependent on this system. Meanwhile, there’s a jobs crisis. There hasn’t been any serious outlet for people—no sense that things are improving, or that the future looks more promising. So I think all of that anger and resentment exploded—and yes, it was among young people, especially in urban centers.
- William Shoki
And does that explain, demographically, why this was a Gen Z–driven protest? In the piece you co-wrote with Fraser Sugden for Africa Is a Country, you highlight how Nepal witnessed the growth of a higher-education sector that’s produced a large number of graduates who aren’t being absorbed into the job market. Is it fair to say there’s now a class of downwardly mobile young people—economically starved, politically disillusioned—who are confronting an elite that seems completely indifferent to their reality? I’d love for you to describe that demographic a bit more, and explain why they were the ones to lead this moment.
And then secondly—why the social media ban? What exactly was the government trying to achieve? I didn’t realize, until you said it, that these companies were given just a week to register. But even so, that’s an incredibly short time frame. What was driving the government’s desire to crack down, and were they really so surprised at the backlash? It’s strange that they thought they could get away with it.
- Feyzi Ismail
Yes—first, on remittances and the investment in education—I think that’s a crucial part of what’s going on. What we say in the article is that there’s a kind of desperation—a search for a way out of the experience of work, particularly agricultural work. Many families don’t want their children to continue farming, and young people themselves often don’t see a future in it, at least in terms of stable livelihoods. So there’s been a huge investment in education, and a lot of remittances are channeled into that. You have many young people from rural areas moving to cities—not just Kathmandu but also district headquarters—to study. Nepal has a young population, and the growth of educational institutions reflects that demographic. A much smaller group, of course, goes abroad. But the general sentiment is that if we invest in education, our children will have better lives—and of course, that’s a universal hope, not unique to Nepal. In some cases, this investment pays off, but structurally there’s a deep jobs crisis. There simply isn’t enough employment to absorb the growing ranks of educated young people.
A lot of this is rooted in the decimation of domestic industry and the failure to develop what was possible. Like many countries, Nepal underwent neoliberal economic reforms beginning in the early 1990s—privatization, liberalization, and so on. Much of its industry was sold off, primarily to Indian capital, and wasn’t allowed to grow. Nepal once had a relatively well-developed garment sector, as well as jute, rubber, and other industries. More could have been done, but because of trade arrangements and economic policy choices, that potential was never realized. As a result, there’s been a serious structural failure to create jobs at scale.
In 2024 alone, about 870,000 people left the country for work. Most families have at least one member working abroad—often not even in Kathmandu, but directly from the village to India, the Gulf, or elsewhere. This kind of migration is incredibly common. And it’s not just that people are going abroad—they’re doing some of the worst jobs, under very harsh conditions. The government has largely facilitated this process. It provides passports and oversees the bare minimum, but there’s not nearly enough regulation to protect migrant workers from exploitation by middlemen and recruitment agencies. It’s a system that enables people to leave but doesn’t create the conditions for them to stay. There hasn’t been any concerted effort to develop the domestic labor market or expand industrial employment.
To be clear, some things have changed over the past 20 to 30 years. Nepal is now a service economy, and there’s been some growth in small businesses and entrepreneurship. But this isn’t the result of proactive government policy. The welfare state is extremely basic, and there’s been no serious effort to address the structural crisis of employment. So what you see is a government deeply disconnected from the reality facing most people.
The decision to ban social media is emblematic of that disconnect. It reflects a profound misreading of how people live, communicate, and participate in political and cultural life. The idea that you could just ban major platforms—Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok—and expect no backlash is baffling. It’s not even clear why they gave companies just a week to register. Maybe it was…
