Heal the Aching Motherland

 

It has been more than one and a half month of the gen Z revolution, and general people's initial enthusiasm for change has gradually been fading away. They had expected the newly formed interim government would take an immediate action to punish those who were directly involved in the murder of more than 70 innocent people on the 8th and 9th of September. Unfortunately, there arose so many other issues to be addressed which blanketed the main issue of finding out the guilty people. This has created frustration in general public, and they are skeptical to get justice.

The current scenario of the country is full of uncertainties. There is no doubt that the government is trying its best to maintain normalcy but there are many challenges. In the first place, the council of ministers has not been complete yet and time is ticking out. More than this what is ridiculous is that several people who the Prime Minister recommends as minister to the President turn not to be with clean image. I think there must be extended research before taking any decision so that it should not be changed time and again. In addition, the process of selection could also be accelerated. Once the cabinet is full, then the government's sole focus would be on the main issues, which are to find out the guilty people involved in the mass massacre during the gen Z protest, to start working on anti-corruption and to hold elections successfully on time, i.e., on the 5th of March, 2026.

The government has formed a three-member probe commission headed by a former Supreme Court Judge Gauri Bahadur Karki to investigate everything related to gen Z protests and the commission has been given three months to complete the probe. I am hopeful that without being influenced by anything or anybody the commission has been working fairly to reach its goal.

The Nepali people are witnessing many unprecedented happenings during such a volatile situation of the country. Among them the most annoying thing that I am experiencing is that how people are spreading negativity using the social media platforms. They are posting fake news instigating awful comments. There is the use of foul language, swearing words and what not. 

Sadly, the same bad language used in the cyber world has come to the real world as well. It seems as if the Nepali people use this sort of language in their everyday life, which is not true. A language is related to people's identity, so using the taboo language what sort of identity we are creating? What will be an impact of this on little children who are in the process of learning the language and being massively exposed to swearing words?

We have recently seen different groups of unauthorized people entering the government offices with their demands and threatening the officers. They even asked for their resignation. It was absolutely a wrong doing in the name of so-called gen Z youths. A responsible gen Z group would never involve in such a filthy task. There must be a protocol to follow if you want something to be done in a formal organization which was breached by a bunch of young people who had pretended to be an authority themselves. Activities like theirs create terror and insecurities in people; and how can they work peacefully in their work place? After a couple of such incidents, the government has arrested some of the people who were terrorizing the government personnel. Let's hope this kind of irresponsible activities will not repeat again.

An acute blame game has also been developed after the gen Z revolution. If we believe what people are claiming, there is not a single person we can find in the country with a clean image. Whether you consider the great personality Dr. Sanduk Ruit, the Prime Minister Sushila Karki, the Minister of Home Affairs Om Prakash Aryal, the Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Kul Man Ghising or anyone who has done something good for the country, they are being criticized baselessly. Some renowned e-papers are also selling the same sort of stories. The interim government has a lot of tasks to do within a limited time. These nonsense stories may distract its main focus, and this may be the intention of rumormongers.  

 

Journalism is regarded as a very sacred  profession. It comes after the three branches of democracy - executive, legislative and judiciary. So, it is called the fourth branch. These days some journalists have also failed to follow their work ethics. I think such journalists are not journalists in real sense but they are self-proclaimed ones. I remember a so-called journalist who was shouting at one of the gen Z representatives to take accountability of every damage that had happened on the 8th and 9th of September. The poor gen Z boy was trying to clarify that the probe commission has already been formed to investigate the incidents of killing and vandalism happened on those dates but that pathetic journalist was unable to process this information. His stubbornness was ridiculous.

For the past some days Balen Shah's poem had got an entire attention on the social media platforms. In that poem only an expression 'as dirty as a farmer' was being attacked . A majority of people interpreted this expression denotatively instead of connotatively. They stated that Balen Shah insulted farmers saying that they are dirty people and they vented their anger upon him. More interestingly, the All Nepal Peasants' Federation even issued a press release asking Balen to remove this expression from the poem. The word 'dirty' reminded me my PhD days. At that time my research supervisors used to tell me to dirty my hands while conducting my study, then only I could succeed. Doing PhD and farming are equally daunting and without working hard neither PhD scholars nor farmers reach their goal.

All these examples are the evidence of our mental level on an average. We do not have practice of critical thinking, as a result, we are unable to differentiate between facts and rumors. During this critical time we, as responsible citizens, must be united for a common cause to relieve the country from all the problems that she is facing right now. 

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, October 31, 2025 ) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]

 

 

 

 

 

Stop Discrediting Gen Z Youths

 

What comes to your mind when you hear the term 'Gen Z group '? If you ask me the same question, I would answer that it is a particular generation of people who belong to the age group 13 to 28.  They are globally connected via the internet, so they are pretty aware of the worldly affairs and they are eager to question if they find something is going wrong or they need further explanation on certain issues. Sadly, some notorious political leaders accuse the Gen Z people of being terrorists, traitors or they even compare them with YCL (Young Communist League) people. Are Gen Z and YCL people the same? In my opinion, they are like chalk and cheese. 

The Young Communist League was born during a decade-long Maoist movement in Nepal, which dated back to 1996 and continued until 2006. Since the Maoist movement was an armed struggle, YCL was also obviously an armed youth force to support this movement. The people of my generation have experienced the terror of Maoists at that time. Do the youths of Gen Z hold the same terror? Are they calling for a civil war like YCL? Are they carrying arms? If not, then how dare those politicians address the young Gen Z people as terrorists or YCL?

Economic background 

Thanks to Aashika Tamang, a popular social activist, who, through her videos, has taken us to the places of Gen Z protesters who were injured during the protest of September 8 and 9. Tamang has shown us the real Gen Z faces. Most of the injured people seem to be college students from different villages and they have rented rooms in Kathmandu. They do not seem to be the children from well-to-do families. Through the condition of their rooms, it is clearly visible that their parents are struggling enough to support their children's education.

Whether Aashika Tamang has met the Gen Zers in their rooms or at the hospital beds, all of them look innocent, friendly and determined to bring positive changes in the country. None of them has said that they are in favour of violence. In an unequivocal voice, they simply ask for justice. I have also heard many Gen Z representatives and all of them are presenting their agenda clearly. None of them wants to instigate the violence again. They have seen a lot of loss and destruction in two days, i.e., on the 8th and 9th of September. So, they are begging for no more damage on the part of people and properties. It also does not mean that the Gen Z group is the only group that participated in the protest. There are thousands of others out there who belong to this group. Are they all terrorists?

The Gen Z protest in Nepal attracted an international audience as well. A number of international media outlets have covered the news positively. One of the Indian news channels had made a headline, 'Jis or jawani chalti hai or jamana chalta hai' or the youth leads the world. Nobody can deny that the protest was initiated with a pure intention but it is another story that it was contaminated by various anarchical elements in between. I have seen many school children in foreign countries marching on the streets with placards in support of the Gen Z protesters in Nepal. 

Not only this, in countries like India, Peru, Kenya, Indonesia, the Philippines, Morocco and  Madagascar also youth-led protests have begun to show their dissatisfaction on different issues. A recent CNN report 'From Kathmandu to Lima,’ states that youth-led uprisings are driving thousands from their screens to the streets, demanding accountability, change and, in some cases, toppling governments. In such a situation, how wise it is to blame the Gen Z group for every mishappening that can be observed recently in Nepal? When we go back to the Maoist movement, it never got international acceptance. 

Even though there was a ceasefire and the Maoist party entered open politics and signed a peace treaty, it still had its terrorist tag. It took six solid years to get this tag lifted by the US government. So, there is no point in comparing Gen Z with YCL. As mentioned above, Gen Zers are globally connected. If something happens in a corner of the world, it spreads everywhere in no time. It is people's basic right to get access to the information they need without any censorship. The KP Oli-led government tried to confiscate this right and all Nepali people are facing its consequences. 

Categorisation 

Based on their birth, the world's people are roughly categorised into eight categories. They are the Greatest Generation (born between 1901 to 1927), the Silent Generation (born between 1928 to 1945), the Baby Boomers (born between 1946 to 1964), the Generation X (born between 1965 to 1980), the Millennials (born between 1981 to 1996), the Generation Z (born between 1997 to 2012), the Generation Alpha (born between 2013 to 2024) and the Generation Beta (born between 2025 to 2039). 

According to their category, these people have their typical characteristics too. The available statistics shows that the younger generations, such as Gen Alpha and Gen Z, are growing rapidly and they are becoming a larger portion of the global population, approximately 24 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. In this way, Gen Z represents the world population instead of being a small political group of a country like YCL. Therefore, dear people, do not defame them by labeling terrorists, traitors or YCL. 

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, October 10, 2025 ) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]

Ensure Justice For Gen Z Youth

 Last week was totally unexpected. I was aware of the fact that the young generation of Nepal, named Gen Z, was going to protest against the abrupt social media ban by the former government and the growing corruption in the country.  Since such protests are not unusual in our context, I did not pay that much attention. However, one thing was quite interesting in this Gen-Z protest: it was happening across the country at the same time.

It was Monday, the 23rd of Bhadra, 2082. That day, I was a bit busy at home with my household chores. When I got free, I was curious to learn about the consequences of the protest. But what I saw on the mobile screen took my breath away. It was just out of my imagination. Every newspaper was yelling, 'Police fired the gun! Police fired the gun!' By the end of the day, there was a news story that 19 people were killed and hundreds were injured. Among those 19, 17 were in Kathmandu and two were in Itahari. While I was writing this article, the death toll has reached more than 70. It has been more than a week since that protest, and many things are happening in between, but I am still stuck there. My inner voice is continuously asking, 'Why gunfire? Weren't there other means to disperse the crowd? Is it ethical to shoot the disarmed youngsters?' 

School and college students 

The term Gen Z, which was only used on online platforms and among digitally literate people, suddenly became popular among the public. Some were heard saying Gen Z, some Gen G, some Gin-G, some Zen-J, and some J and J. Until now, most of the common people know that the Gen-Z group includes those people who were born between 1997 and 2012 A. D. So, they belong to the age group 13 to 28.  This means that there were a lot of school and college students who were minors and in their uniforms. Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Nepal is a State Party, it is clearly mentioned that 'every child deserves safety, dignity, and the right to live without fear. Immediate and strict legal action is imperative against any violence targeting children during protests. Their rights must be upheld without compromise.'

In this condition, how can a State head order the police force to fire a gun targeting the students just like that? It is an inexcusable violation of children's rights. Those innocent children were simply asking for their freedom of expression. Unfortunately, their voice was silenced. It seems like it was a planned murder. Many of those deceased students were the only children of their parents. It was hard to see the lamenting people who lost their dear ones in no time. 

We are all grieving this time, but some of the Indian media have portrayed the Nepali youths as social media addicts. They have claimed that the Zen-Z protest was organised only because of the social media ban. How incorrect a message they are delivering to the whole world! But the world is also watching all this, and the world's people can analyse the situation themselves. 

In fact, not only the youngsters, but all Nepali people were affected massively by the ban of most social media platforms. For example, these days many people are doing online business, different organisations also find the social media platforms more convenient for their day-to-day communication. Not only city people but also the village people use social media to sell their products. It should be remembered that the Gen Zeers are digital natives, and what one feel if they are prohibited from entering their own native country? By and large, a majority of people became the victims of the unnecessary decision to ban social media.

Let's go back to the same Gen Z protest. If the government had not become so cruel on the first day, I am sure the second day's destruction would never have happened. What the government should have realised is that the young people of this generation are educated and quite aware of the national and international affairs. Being global citizens, they are studying the world closely. They were out on the street with a good cause; they were merely asking for a corruption-free country. Was their demand so dangerous that the government had to open fire? Were those protesters criminals? This stupid and unforgivable act of KP Sharma Oli-led government has been strongly criticised everywhere. When Sushila Karki, now appointed Prime Minister, went to support the Gen Z protest on the second day, she also condemned this act as being a 'mass murder.'

Revolution

After the Gen Z protest turned into a revolution on the second day, the old government collapsed. Even though the new government has decided to declare martyrs to those who lost their lives during the protest and to provide one and a half million rupees as compensation to their families, these martyrs have not received full justice yet.

It is the newly formed government's duty to find everyone responsible for the death of the innocent young people and punish them according to the law. Then only the Gen Z movement will be successful. Great poet Laxmi Prasad Devkota was wise enough to write, 'Natipnu hera kopila, nachudnu paapa laagdachha, nachyaatnu fula naani ho, dayaa ra dharma bhaagdachha...'. Here, the poet is addressing little children, but it is equally applicable to adults and relevant to the incident of September 8.    

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, September 19, 2025 ) 

[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]