Institutionalise Gen-Z’s Demands

Yuba Nath Lamsal:-- The wheel of history always keeps moving forward. Time does not roll back. Everything in this world is changeable. Change is the permanent feature of nature. Events appear to be repeating but they in reality do not repeat. According to Karl Marx, history repeats itself first as tragedy and second as farce. However, history does not repeat itself in the same fashion as it did in the past. Events may appear to be similar but history does not repeat in the same manner. Thus, it is said, ‘history does not repeat but it only rhymes’. One has to learn from the events of history and accordingly chart out the future course of action. However, one who fails to learn from history, he or she will miserably fail in the future. George Santayana says, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," implying that one must learn lessons from history and past events. Those who do not remember history and fail to learn lessons from the past will definitely repeat the same mistakes over and over again and are doomed to miserably fail. Bitter reality The past is the guide for the future. But Nepal’s political parties and politicians have either failed to learn lessons from history or they have simply ignored the bitter reality of history. Thus, they have continued to commit the same mistakes repeatedly despite the warnings from the civil society and the people. This is, perhaps, the reason why political parties and politicians have earned a bad name in the eyes of people, especially the young generation. The recent Gen Z movement is the manifestation of this growing public apathy towards traditional parties and their leaders. Political parties make certain commitments to the people through election manifestos. But once they are elected, they tend to totally ignore their promises. French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau states that parties and politicians make a contract with the people, based on which parties and leaders form the government. Rousseau calls this agreement as ‘social contract’. The election manifestos are a part of the social contract based on which people elect the government. When the people and parties in government fail to truly abide by that contract, the relations between the people and the government or between people and parties are breached, creating new conflict between the government and the people. Politics is the art of governance in which, as Thomas Hobbes says, leaders need to rise above narrow self-interest and work for the common good. But the politicians and parties seem to have neither lived up to their social contracts nor have they simply followed the art of governance. Instead, politics in contemporary Nepal has been revolving around four ‘Pa’ (P)—power, position, paisa (money) and parivaar (family). In other words sole objective of pursuing politics is to achieve power, position, money and prosperity for the family members. The modus operandi to get these four objectives is four ‘Cs’— corruption, criminalisation, collusion and capitulation. As parties and leaders remain focused on power, position, money and family, they have earned a bad name in the eyes of people. The recent Gen Z movement is the result of the breach of the social contract between the parties in government and the people. The Gen Z movement of September 2025 is clearly against the bad governance, corruption and authoritarian tendency of those in power. The Gen Z movement is the fourth most popular movement in the political history of Nepal. The first popular movement was the one that toppled the Rana family oligarchy in 1951 and heralded the dawn of multi-party democracy in Nepal. This event is the watershed in Nepal’s modern political history. The dawn of multi-party democracy in 1951 not only changed the political system but also opened avenues for multiple fields, including the economy, diplomacy, foreign policy, and other dynamics. However, the course was reversed in ten years, in which the king dismantled multi-party democracy and imposed an absolute monarchy in the name of a partyless Panchayat. The Panchayat regime lasted for almost three decades, only to be overthrown in 1990 in the aftermath of the popular democracy movement. The 1990 movement was the second popular movement that restored the multi-party democracy and constitutional monarchy. However, Nepal’s political course witnessed several tumultuous events even after the restoration of multi-party democracy due mainly to the dominance of narrow and self-centric motives of leaders and partisan interests. As a result, broader national interest and development took a back seat. An era of political instability and frequent changes of government began, which gave rise to greater public apathy towards politics, parties and leaders. Undemocratic action Out of this public frustration, the Maoists launched a decade-long armed insurgency in which more than 17,000 Nepalis were killed. The king also tried to take advantage of this situation and tried to impose an absolute regime. A third people’s movement erupted in 2005 that not only brought the insurgent Maoists into the peaceful mainstream but also abolished the monarchy, heralding a new era of republican democracy. Before the movement, leaders of different political parties had publicly apologised to the people and vowed not to repeat the past mistakes. Thus, people overwhelmingly went to the streets backing political parties against the king’s undemocratic action. People were highly optimistic that the politics of Nepal would enter into a new era marked with good governance, greater transparency and accountability. As habits die hard, the parties and leaders failed to correct themselves and keep their promises made to the people. Thus, the Gen Z movement emerged, which is the fourth most popular movement in Nepal. It was essentially an expression against pervasive corruption, nepotism, favoritism, and poor governance. This movement is a historic one as it toppled the government within 48 hours. The key demands of the Gen Z are corruption control, good governance and change in the electoral system, which need to be institutionalised and implemented in practice at the larger interest of the people and the country. (The author is a former chief editor of this daily and a former ambassador. lamsalyubanath@gmail.com)