By Alejandro Iturbe
An uprising broke out in Nepal a few weeks ago, which was led by young people in Kathmandu, the capital, and it spread to other cities across the country. These young people identify as “Generation Z.” Faced with government repression resulting in several deaths, the protesters radicalized their methods. They set fire to Parliament and other government buildings, forcing Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to resign and prompting several officials to flee the country [1]. Information has since emerged that the president appointed Sushila Karki, the former head of the Supreme Court of Justice, as the new prime minister “in agreement with the protest leaders” [2].
Most of the international press has presented what happened as an “anti-communist rebellion” in defense of press freedom. The reality is very different. What kind of country is Nepal? What is the true meaning of this revolutionary process, and what are its prospects?
Nepal is a country of nearly 150,000 square kilometers and around 30 million inhabitants. It is located on a strip of land between China to the north and India to the south. Much of the world knows little about it except that it is home to the Himalayan mountain range, which contains the world’s highest mountains, such as Everest. As a result, it is a destination for daring climbers and trekkers. Since the 1960s, Nepal has been a popular travel destination for young Westerners seeking “inner peace” at the country’s various religious sites, such as Hindu and Buddhist temples [3].
Some may also know Nepal as the homeland of the fearsome Gurkha warriors, who have served as mercenaries alongside the British army in various wars since the early 19th century. These wars include World Wars I and II, the Falklands War (1982), and more recently, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some history
The modern Nepalese nation came into being in 1768 when several regions were unified and Prithvi Narayan, a Hindu king, was installed. An attempt was made to expand the territory southward, which clashed with the interests of the British East India Company. This led to the Anglo-Gurkha War (1814–1816). Although the Gurkhas were defeated, the British were so impressed by their bravery that they began regularly recruiting them as mercenaries, organizing them into regiments within the British East India Company’s army. Although Nepal maintained relative independence, it established very strong ties with colonial India.
In 1950, independent India proposed that Nepal join it. Nepal rejected the offer but established an agreement allowing the free movement and residence of their inhabitants. The two countries have very deep economic, linguistic, religious, and cultural relations. Meanwhile, the Nepalese monarchy maintained good relations with the United Kingdom.
During those same years, the Nepalese Congress Party was founded and promoted from India. It took its name and ideology from the organization led by Mahatma Gandhi. The party proposed political reforms to establish a parliament and transition to a constitutional monarchy. In 1978, the Communist Party of Nepal (Marxist-Leninist) was founded underground and was influenced by the CPI(ML), which had a strong presence in the Indian state of Bihar. The party defined itself as Maoist and adopted the Maoist vision of the poor peasantry as the main force of the revolution. In 1991, other minor communist organizations joined the party, prompting the addition of the term “Unified” to its name, resulting in the acronym CPN (UML).
That same year, the monarchy was forced to hold the country’s first parliamentary elections. While the king retained central power over the state, a parliament-based government was formed and headed by a prime minister. The two most popular organizations were the Congress Party and the PCN (MLU), both of which had been legalized. The two parties took turns holding the position of prime minister, but their governments were short-lived.
Civil war and the fall of the monarchy
In 1996, the CPN (MLU) launched an armed insurrection, demanding an end to the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic. They also demanded an end to discrimination against ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities and a fight against poverty. The monarchy responded with an army of nearly 100,000 soldiers.
Maoist forces dominated entire regions of the country, reinforcing their presence through popularity among important sectors of Nepalese society, including women, the untouchables, and ethnic minorities. In these regions, caste discrimination was eliminated, women received the same inheritance rights as men, and forced marriages were prohibited. Additionally, they were provided with free healthcare and literacy courses.
The civil war lasted about ten years, resulting in nearly 13,000 casualties. In 2006, the cornered monarchical regime promoted the formation of a new government comprised of several parliamentary parties. This government signed a ceasefire with the CPN (UML) that included convening a Constituent Assembly. In 2008, the assembly abolished the monarchy and established a democratic federal republic.
This marked the triumph of a great democratic revolution that overthrew an 18th century monarchical regime and established a bourgeois-democratic regime. This is an important concept for understanding what is happening in Nepal today.
Some economic and social data
Following the fall of the monarchy, Nepal remained a poor capitalist country. Consider the following economic and social data: In 2024, its nominal GDP was nearly $42 billion, while its GDP per capita was $1,397, which is below that of poor African countries such as Sudan and Benin. Half of its population lives below the poverty line.
Nearly 80% of the population relies on subsistence agriculture in the humid jungle plains of the Terai in southern Nepal. Agriculture accounts for just over 25% of the GDP. Industrial development is limited to the artisanal production of carpets and textiles, as well as the processing of food, beverages, and tobacco. The textile sector exports much of its production, including that of some larger companies.
Tourism is the most dynamic economic activity: In 2019, there were more than 1.2 million foreign tourists. Consequently, Kathmandu has developed a wide range of hotels of various levels, including a Hilton hotel with the most modern building in the capital. There are also many restaurants, as well as companies that organize religious or sports tours. After the negative impacts of the powerful 2015 earthquake and the subsequent 2020 pandemic, activity has begun to recover its previous levels. It is estimated that tourism contributed nearly $2.5 billion to the country’s economy in 2023 and generated more than one million direct and indirect jobs.
Nepal receives “international aid” from many sources: India, China, European countries, and the United States. In 2024, this “aid” totaled around $1.4 billion. That same year, its external debt was nearly $10 billion and growing. However, the main source of foreign income is remittances sent to their families by the 2.6 million Nepalese living and working abroad, especially in India. Additionally, many temporary workers travel periodically to India for a few months each year.
These remittances are estimated to total nearly $10.5 billion, accounting for 25% of the country’s GDP—as much as the agricultural sector.[8]
Nepal’s social structure
The country’s economy greatly limits the development of a solid national bourgeoisie. Undoubtedly, the strongest sector is tourism and related activities. There is also a sinister “intermediary bourgeoisie”: companies that hire temporary workers for India with exploitative contracts that force them to work in conditions akin to slavery abroad and pay high fees for this “service,” which they must pay off over several years [9].
The development of urban middle classes is also limited to sectors linked to tourism, commerce, and other services; craft industry owners; and a small sector of professionals. Finally, as we have seen, there is a large sector of impoverished peasants.
To understand the working class, one must piece together incomplete data because national statistics are unreliable. The largest sector is tourism and related industries, as previously mentioned. There are 160,000 teachers in primary and secondary schools, as well as in the ten Nepalese universities. Additionally, 50,000 doctors and 350,000 nurses work in the health sector. Additionally, there are approximately 90,000 public employees. However, it is difficult to calculate the number of industrial workers because industry statistics include small business owners and salaried workers, the largest sector of which is in the textile industry. For the same reasons, it is also difficult to calculate the number of workers in agriculture, construction, and transportation. These sectors have a high level of precariousness and underemployment. As we have seen, many Nepalese workers have had to emigrate to India to find employment, and many others emigrate temporarily.
An ongoing revolution
Now that we have covered the background, we can analyze the revolutionary process taking place in Nepal in much greater detail. Following the 2006 democratic revolution, Nepal remained a capitalist country under the leadership of the CPN (UML) and the Congress Party. Therefore, rather than “fighting poverty” as they proposed in their insurrectionary program, they further consolidated it. This fueled growing discontent among the population.
Like previous Nepalese governments, the recently resigned government was bourgeois, though it “dressed itself in red flags” to hide this fact. We see this in several countries around the world, such as China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba.
As with the “communist” governments of these countries, the leaders and senior cadres of the CPN (UML) enrich themselves and adopt a standard of living far superior to that of the Nepalese people. To this end, they exploit state-managed funds and allow the sinister “contractor bourgeoisie” to operate freely. “The Nepalese government is failing to address the widespread practices of deception and extortion by the country’s labor contracting companies,” says James Lynch, deputy director of Amnesty International’s Global Issues Program.
Senior members of the ruling party and their children shamelessly flaunt their wealth in front of the impoverished population. The children of the elite are called “Nepo Kids” (“the children of nepotism”). This was one of the underlying reasons for the great anger of Nepalese youth.
Many international media outlets have presented the government’s decision to block social media networks belonging to international companies, such as Facebook, X, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Google, as the motivating factor behind the youth rebellion. The government justified the measure by claiming that these networks spread “fake news” and did not comply with the laws.
However, this is a distortion of reality. In Nepal, it is true that the internet and social media are the main means of communication and access to information. In the days leading up to the youth uprising, videos went viral showing the lavish lifestyles of members of the “communist” elite and their children, the Nepo Kids. The CPN (UML) wanted to block this “fake news.”
However, this measure was only the spark that lit the fuse. As the British BBC showed in the excellent article already cited, this was the spark that lit the fuse. The central issue is the obvious corruption of the government. “We want to see an end to corruption in Nepal,” said Binu KC, a 19-year-old university student. Also, politicians’ lies: “Leaders promise one thing during elections, but they never deliver.” Another university student, Sabana Budathoki, stated that the ban on social media is “just the excuse” for the protest.
Generation Z
The urban youth of Kathmandu were the central protagonists of the process that led to the fall of the government. These young people are between the ages of 15 and 25 and identify as Generation Z. Most of them are high school or college students. Notably, there are nearly three million high school students and over half a million university students in Nepal. They are the children of workers and the lower middle class in Kathmandu and other cities; the bourgeoisie send their children abroad to study.
This generation feels that it has no future in Nepalese society. Even if they study, they may not find work—unemployment is 25% among urban youth, which is double the overall average—or they may only find low-paying jobs. Another alternative is to emigrate to find work, especially in India, Malaysia, and the oil-producing countries of the Persian Gulf. Unemployment and a lack of future prospects were the underlying reasons for the young Nepalese uprising against a corrupt and hypocritical political regime and government. For this reason, urban youth also joined the rebellion.
They aspire to profound change in Nepal: “We want to reclaim our country,” declared student leader Sabana Budathoki. Faced with harsh government repression, Nepalese youth radicalized their methods and confronted the regime directly: they burned down Parliament, forced the prime minister to resign, and caused other government officials to flee.
What is happening in Nepal is a new expression of processes that have already taken place in several countries, with student youth at the center of highly radicalized struggles against regimes and governments. Examples include the struggle of Chilean high school students known as “the penguin rebellion” (2006), the struggle of young people in Hong Kong (2020), and the process that led to the overthrow of the Bangladeshi government in 2024.
According to media reports, these protests were not centrally organized but rather by various “collectives” operating through social media. This is the first embryo of an organization that must be consolidated and developed to promote the continuity of the struggle for the demands that sparked it.
Although some workers participated individually, the Nepalese working class did not participate in an organized manner. There is a clear explanation for this: for decades, there have been unions of teachers, health workers, public employees, transport workers, construction workers, and textile workers in Nepal. The leadership of these unions has always been in the hands of the CPN (UML), which is associated with the Congress Party. These unions were very active and participated in the struggle that led to the overthrow of the monarchy. Since 2006, however, they have become institutions of the new regime, supporting its various governments. I have not found any media statements from Nepalese unions taking a position on the Generation Z protests. It is likely that they have remained silent publicly and have tried to stop workers from participating in the protests. This is an important factor to consider when making a proposal for how the struggle in the country should continue.
“February” and “October”
First, it is necessary to characterize what has happened and is happening in Nepal. When studying the Russian process in 1917, it is evident that two revolutions occurred. The first, in February of that year, overthrew the monarchical regime and established broad democratic freedoms. However, the Russian state remained capitalist. In October, there was not only a change in regime but also a total change in the country’s economic and social structure. The class character of the state changed (Russia became a workers’ state called the USSR).
Some democratic revolutions change the regime but not the class character of the state. The October Revolution of 1917, however, was a workers’ and socialist revolution that changed everything. The Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin and Trotsky, consciously transformed the democratic revolution into a socialist one in accordance with the criteria of permanent revolution [15]. After seizing power, the Bolshevik leadership dedicated the new workers’ state to advancing the international socialist revolution, particularly in Europe.
From 1917 to the present, many democratic revolutions have occurred, but none have repeated the Russian example. This is because the processes have been led by nonrevolutionary leadership, which has slowed the natural dynamics of the revolutionary process. This has sometimes resulted in severe setbacks in the face of counterrevolution, including the rise of fascism in Italy (1921), Nazism in Germany (1933), Francoism in Spain (1939), and Pinochet’s coup in Chile (1973). These situations require a new revolution to overthrow the regimes and regain democratic freedoms.
In other cases, when faced with an uprising, the bourgeoisie opted for a policy called “democratic reaction”: slowing down and “freezing” the process within the framework of the bourgeois democratic regime and its institutions (elections and parliament), with the collaboration or direct participation of nonrevolutionary leaders. It would take too long to list all the countries where this happened.
To the extent that the regime resulting from a frozen democratic revolution maintains the capitalist system in a country, it leaves the deepest aspirations of workers and the masses unfulfilled. This is due to the constant attacks on their standard of living that the bourgeoisie must make, as well as the increasing attacks on democratic freedoms.
Workers and the masses began to understand that they must fight against the regime to achieve their aspirations.
This gives rise to what the Argentine Trotskyist Nahuel Moreno called “recurrent” democratic revolutions: struggles against regimes that emerged from February revolutions. Sometimes these processes are so powerful that they overthrow governments, as in the Argentinazo of 2001. In these cases, the bourgeoisie uses the same policy of democratic reaction to try to stop the process. In our opinion, what is happening in Nepal is clearly a “recurring February” (the “original” occurred in 2006).
Some final considerations:
After a democratic revolution, whether “original” or “recurring,” the masses must advance their mobilization toward a workers’ and socialist revolution to achieve their aspirations.
Aware of this danger, the parties of the bourgeois regime (the CPN-UML and the Congress Party) will try to convince Generation Z leaders that the resignation of KP Sharma Oli’s government and the appointment of Sushila Karki solve the problem and that they must now work with the new prime minister to solve the country’s problems. This is a trap because it will only serve to rebuild the current regime and maintain the capitalist system in the country.
Generation Z must not fall into this trap. They must maintain and strengthen their organization and continue to mobilize for their demands. They have just won a great victory, and their fighting spirit has been strengthened. At the same time, it is essential that they win over workers to this mobilization and these demands. This means calling on workers to overthrow and/or break away from the regime’s union leadership.
Historical experience shows that in a poor country like Nepal, the masses must impose a Workers’ and People’s Emergency Plan to achieve their aspirations. Based on available resources, this plan sets priorities for their use, with the first priority being the satisfaction of urgent needs, such as full and decent employment.
The plan should include measures such as not paying foreign debt, expropriating the bourgeoisie—particularly large national and international tourism companies and sinister “contractors”—and seizing the assets of leaders of the CPN-UML and Congress Party. To implement such a plan, the workers and masses must take power and install a Workers’ and People’s Government to begin constructing a Workers’ State.
As Trotskyists, we actively promote this process and maintain that, as the Russian Revolution of 1917 shows, it is necessary to build a revolutionary party that consistently and consciously pushes the struggle to the end.
One final consideration is that, if successful, this Nepalese workers’ state will be based in a poor country with a very underdeveloped economy. If it remains isolated, it will be difficult to solve the masses’ problems, and it may fall due to “starvation.” Therefore, its survival depends on the revolution spreading, especially to its powerful neighbor India, which has many more resources and a large working class. The fact that many Nepalese workers live and work in India permanently or temporarily will help generate that “contagion.” At the same time, India’s new working class has recently staged massive general strikes. In other words, the situation is favorable for unifying the struggles of both peoples.
Sources
[1] https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/cqxz8q48ej3o
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c179qne0zw0o
[3] For more information, see The Roads of Kathmandu, a novel by French writer René Barjavel (1969), available at https://ww3.lectulandia.com/book/los-caminos-katmandu.
[4] John Whelpton, History of Nepal, Cambridge: The University Press, 2005, available at https://d1i1jdw69xsqx0.cloudfront.net/digitalhimalaya/collections/journals/ebhr/pdf/EBHR_29_30_11.pdf.
[5] https://www.publico.es/actualidad/nepal-declara-republica-deja-atras-240-anos-monarquia.html
[6] https://kathmandupost.com/money/2024/06/10/nepal-s-tourism-paid-for-1-19-million-jobs-in-2023
[7] https://mondediplo.com/2025/04/11nepal
[8] https://www.amnesty.org/es/latest/press-release/2017/06/nepal-unscrupulous-recruiters-given-free-rein-to-exploit-migrants/
[9] See previous reference.
[9] See previous reference.
[10] Ibid.
[11] https://argmedios.com.ar/el-levantamiento-de-la-generacion-z-en-nepal-se-centra-en-el-empleo-la-dignidad-y-un-modelo-de-desarrollo-fallido/.
[12] https://litci.org/es/viva-la-rebelion-de-los-pinguinos/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[13] https://litci.org/es/se-reanuda-la-lucha-en-hong-kong/ [14] https://litci.org/es/viva-los-estudiantes-victoriosos-de-bangladesh-adelante-la-revolucion-bengali/
[14] https://litci.org/es/viva-los-estudiantes-victoriosos-de-bangladesh-adelante-la-revolucion-bengali/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
[15] https://www.marxists.org/espanol/trotsky/revperm/
[16] https://litci.org/es/todo-apoyo-a-la-huelga-general/?utm_source=copylink&utm_medium=browser
