Nepali demonstrators set parliament ablaze on Tuesday while the veteran prime minister quit, as a “gen Z” protest movement sparked by a ban on social media overtook the Himalayan nation.
At least 19 people were killed during rallies a day earlier, one of the deadliest crackdowns in years which fuelled public anger.
Protesters flooded the streets of the capital Kathmandu on Tuesday, some jubilant and celebrating, others setting fire to government buildings and brandishing automatic rifles.
The rapid descent into chaos shocked many, and Nepal’s military warned against “activities that could lead the country into unrest and instability” in the country of 30 million people.
Protests began on Monday with demands that the government lift a ban on social media and tackle corruption, with police trying to crush the rallies — including using live ammunition, according to Amnesty International.
Several social media sites — including Facebook, YouTube and X — were blocked on Friday, after the government cut access to 26 unregistered platforms.
Since then, videos contrasting the struggles of ordinary Nepalis with the children of politicians flaunting luxury goods and expensive vacations have gone viral on TikTok, which was not blocked.
Protesters clashed with police outside the nation’s parliament in Kathmandu on 8 September as thousands of youths rallied against the government’s social media ban and widespread corruption. Source: NurPhoto / Sanjit Pariyar / NurPhoto via Getty Images
On Tuesday, despite the government rolling back its order and the apps returning online, protests reignited, spreading from the capital to multiple cities nationwide.
In his resignation letter, four-time prime minister and leader of the Communist Party KP Sharma Oli said he had stepped down to allow “steps towards a political solution”.
“The Nepal government has fallen, the youth have won the protest,” said key protest figure Sudan Gurung, in a post on newly-restored Instagram. “The future is ours.”
Gangs on Tuesday attacked and set fire to 73-year-old Oli’s house. His whereabouts are not known.
Plumes of smoke also covered Nepal’s parliament as demonstrators breached the fence and “torched the main building,” Ekram Giri, spokesman for the Parliament Secretariat, told AFP.
A vigil for protesters killed in Nepal was held at Federation Square in Melbourne on Tuesday night. Source: SBS News / Abhas Parajuli
President calls for ‘restraint’
President Ramchandra Paudel, whose offices were also set on fire by mobs, pleaded for “all parties to exercise restraint, to not allow further damage”.
The call was echoed by neighbouring India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that the “stability, peace and prosperity of Nepal are of utmost importance to us”.
The United Nations rights chief, Volker Turk, said he was “appalled” by the violence and called for talks.
Those appeals did not seem to be heeded.
Protesters, mostly young men, were seen waving the country’s national flag as they dodged water cannons.
The International Crisis Group called it a “major inflection point in the country’s uneasy experience with democratic rule”.
Kathmandu’s airport remains open, but some flights were cancelled after smoke from fires affected visibility, airport spokesperson Rinji Sherpa said.
What happens next is unclear
Oli’s political career stretched nearly six decades, a period that saw a decade-long civil war, with Nepal abolishing its absolute monarchy in 2008 to become a republic.
First elected as prime minister in 2015, he was re-elected in 2018, reappointed briefly in 2021, and then took power in 2024 after his Communist Party forged a coalition government with the centre-left Nepali Congress in the often-volatile parliament.
What happens next is unclear.
“The protesters, leaders who are trusted by them and the army should come together to pave the way for a caretaker government,” constitutional lawyer Dipendra Jha told AFP.
Crisis Group analyst Ashish Pradhan echoed that, saying a “transitional arrangement will now need to be charted out swiftly and include figures who still retain credibility with Nepalis, especially the country’s youth”.
Protesters at the Singha Durbar, the seat of Nepal’s government’s various ministries and offices, after it was set on fire. Source: AP / AP Photo / Niranjan Shrestha
Balendra Shah, the 35-year-old engineer-turned-rapper who was elected as Kathmandu’s mayor in 2022, and who is seen as a popular figure in the transition ahead, used Facebook to call on people to “be restrained”.
“We had made it clear: this is purely a Gen Z movement,” Shah wrote after Oli’s resignation, referring to young people aged largely in their 20s.
“Your generation must take the lead in running the country. Be ready!”
People aged 15-40 make up nearly 43 percent of the population, according to government statistics — while unemployment hovers around 10 percent and GDP per capita is just $1,447, according to the World Bank.
