The fire smoldering beneath the ashes that the leaders failed to see.

 The events of the 23rd and 24th of Bhadau will not be written only in the crimson letters of history. The 23rd of Bhadau was a sign towards light, but the evening of the 24th signaled a turn towards darkness.

Just as a storm cannot be summoned by setting limits to its destruction, movements too cannot be organized by setting boundaries for devastation. However, the events of the 24th were not as they appeared on the surface; they were abnormal.

They reminded me of the 1789 Paris events I had read about in history. Something was brewing in the background. Who was responsible for the subsequent vandalism and destruction? And who is accountable for the sacrifice of the young boys and girls? Without a judicial investigation and punishment of the guilty, and without addressing its politico-economic causes, it is difficult to establish long-term stability in the country.

This does not mean that life goes on by scratching the wounds of history. We must rise, shaking off the dust. We must search for new possibilities and embark on a new journey. We must move forward by minutely studying and analyzing the cause-and-effect relationships of events. This principle of life applies to society and the country as well.

Nepal will rise again. The current turmoil is temporary, and to a large extent, the current actors will also gradually fade into the alleys of history.

Destruction is not as easy as construction. Both time and patience are needed for the latter. We will gradually leap towards that. Extinguished lamps will be lit by adding oil, extinguished hearths will be rekindled by adding firewood. We had been moving forward even after enduring the many storms of the civil war, the blockade, the earthquake, and COVID-19. Relative to history's challenges, our pace slowed, our walk became confused, and our sustenance came under someone's control. Some people's plates remained empty. We have seen the results.

It is alarming that the leaders of parties like the UML, Congress, and Maoists—who played major roles in governments formed in these 10 years since the constitution, who were parliamentarians, sat in the central leadership of the party, led provinces and local levels, and ran the party at those levels—had no inkling of the terrible public discontent that was about to erupt like a volcano.

This is also an important example of how those in power become disconnected from the psychology of the people, like parents unaware of the state of mind of their own children.

While Gen-Z was preparing for a massive demonstration in Kathmandu, around 2,500 leaders and workers of the UML, led by the Prime Minister and Chairman, were gathered in Godavari for three days. Those gathered there neither sensed the impending crisis nor discussed it. This reminded me of the Panchayali gatherings organized in the final months of 2046 BS.

This is an indication of how intoxicated they were with power, unable to feel the sand slipping from beneath their own feet. How can those who could not gauge the attacks about to happen on their offices, homes, and public property, or the anger of the young boys and girls pouring onto the streets, be fit to lead society and the country?

Gen-Z deserves respect in the sense that they showed a way to push aside and remove from the stage the old party leadership that had become a burden of the era. They blatantly exposed how weak our democratic institutions are, eaten by termites.

They provided study material on where our economy is losing its way. They exposed the hollowness of the security apparatus. They gave a message, for all time to those who learn from history, that those who oppress the people and sacrifice all values for gaining and protecting power will one day be punished.

They also gave a message to those in party leadership or those waiting for their turn: time does not always wait for you; whatever you have to do, do it today. If you want your own future and claim to lead the country, throw the stinking leadership from your shoulders and manage it properly.

Now, find ways to move forward and listen to our demands. The biggest thing is that the parties you led or claimed to lead are responsible for the current situation having arisen. Now, don't even imagine selling dreams of democracy and socialism by carrying the baggage of the same ideology, the same leadership, the same working style.

Repeating Tragedies

Why hasn't Nepali society transformed as expected? Where did we go wrong, that every 10-20 years we are challenged by the storms of revolution and movement? Why has every generation had to be sacrificed for political intervention? Why didn't 2007, 2016, 1990, or 2006-07 BS become the final verses of revolution?

The main reason is compromise. The inability to steadfastly extend the revolution to its goals. There are both internal and external reasons for this. Some don't like to hear this at all: our revolutions were incomplete.

The 1951 revolution was compromised by giving continuity to Mohan Shamsher. The main force that should have institutionalized the goals of the revolution was the Nepali Congress (the communists were even prevented by the Congress and India from directly participating in the revolution, under the assumption that they would gain power). But Nehru managed the settlement. There were geopolitical reasons for this that the Congress could not cross.

The palace played its game and sat for 9 years. The journey to achieve the goals of the revolution that BP, as Prime Minister, tried to set was broken within 18 months. The 7-year revolution failed because the main burden of changing land relations, considered the main basis of feudalism, and making farmers owners of the land, could not be completed.

The very entity that the 7-year revolution was supposed to bid farewell from the stage of history, with its support, Mahendra staged a coup and gradually brought the state's resources and means under his control. Even now, the use of the resources he centralized is against democracy. The Chaitra Trikanda (Three-Cornered) incident is just one example.

In 1980, sacrifices were made, forcing the announcement of a referendum. That was towards the final years of the Cold War. The Soviet army had just entered Afghanistan. The Vietnamese army was in Cambodia. America and Western powers were active in containing communists. Its effect was on the Congress too (one can know this by studying BP's statements after the 1977 reconciliation policy). After the anti-Panchayat forces failed to unite in the referendum, independents were made to win. The movement and sacrifices were wasted.

In 1990 too, the movement was dissolved in a compromise with the palace. The same old bureaucracy, the same old court and justice system, the same old districts and local bodies. The state was not restructured anywhere. The movement ended merely by dividing power between the King, the Congress, and the Communists.

The state resources, a large part of which the palace had captured during the Panchayat, now began to be divided according to status among the palace, the Congress, and the Communists. Where intervention was needed for politico-economic transformation, it didn't happen. What neoliberalism, applied under Western prescription, gave or took away became the cause of subsequent discontent.

The 2006 movement and revolution, with the participation of the Maoists, restructured the state to some extent, but no one paid attention to the structural changes needed in the economy. First, the urban elite class resisted the Maoists and didn't let them work. Later, the Maoists themselves surrendered to this class.

The Root Cause: An Unchanged Economic Structure

Land reform was never carried out here, nor were there any serious efforts towards industrialization. As remittance sent by exporting youth, the imports it increased, and the vicious cycle of import-dependent state coffers grew, only unemployment, extreme despair, and discontent spread.

Had we built an independent national industrial economy and provided jobs in the modern sector to the population dependent on subsistence livelihoods, had we encouraged agriculture to find a path to large firms, the situation would have changed. But we failed. We failed. As state organs were politicized, parties factionalized, factions were personalized, and politics narrowed down to a musical chair of a few limited individuals, what shouldn't have happened, happened, and what should have happened, didn't.

The View Tower of Jhapa, the stadiums and assembly halls of Jhapa and Dadeldhura became examples of development. The airports of Bhairahawa and Pokhara showed our fragile geopolitical links, and yet we did not become cautious.

The series of incomplete revolutions, the transformation of revolutionaries into traditional elite groups, and the marginalization of the common people continued after every revolution. The planned destruction by some interest groups, using the innocent anger of the common people as a tool, has now pushed the country into an abyss that will take decades to fill.

The Frustrated ‘Working Class’

Watching the TV screens and social media walls, many forms of the movement were visible. Seeing the Facebook and TikTok posts and comments of the Gen-Z youth from my neighborhood, my teenage relatives within the family, this movement had generations, classes were mixed.

Those who had studied or were studying up to Plus Two or Master's level, those who had started small jobs or were preparing to go abroad, those who had just started a career or were living days of unemployment and scarcity. The elite class was a small number; the majority were from the urban middle and lower-middle class. Very few from the working class were visible.

This was a peaceful note of dissent written against the decisions of our leadership regarding the future of this generation's life, carrying an emotional self-respect. One group among them was of the line ready to bear anything with a shroud tied on their head. It represented the real Gen-Z.

From the first day's clash, there was the entry of interest groups. A section of Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) and Balen supporters was there. Balen, from the previous day, seemed to be trying to bring the movement under his command—he is a populist of the city's rising political class, an elite.

The hullabaloo around the "NepoBaby" label on TikTok before the movement started wasn't created suddenly overnight. It seems Nepal had been preparing for this for a long time, which some left-leaning Western personalities have commented on as being funded by America and being part of a color revolution. They are also trying to provide some material to confirm this.

A large section of Nepalis living abroad also supported and assisted it, who were frustrated with the corruption of Nepali leaders and the administrative work culture. This is also a generation in a hurry.

Probably only a few had an inkling of what would happen the next day. These methods, learned from Indonesia and Bangladesh, give a glimpse of the continuity of color revolutions.

The burning and destruction of Singhadurbar, the Supreme Court, the President's Office, and other public, personal, and physical structures, the attacks on whomever, is not an expression of ordinary anger. It can only be done by thinking, planning for a long time, and planting a small group to implement such a plan. Having grown up from the movement ourselves, we have some experience of how such plans are made.

Events like the vandalism at Trikanda (Three-Cornered) by Durga Prasai's people in Falgun, the incident at Lhotse Mall a year ago, the Bhadau 16 incident, the Rithik Roshan incident show a modus operandi of how such groups are mobilized for destruction. Those who went spontaneously would not have known about such a plan beforehand.

And, looking at the groups involved in the destruction and looting, two distinct groups are clearly visible. One was a conscious group, representing the upper section of the middle class, educated up to the campus level. This was the main planner. It included members of groups with some political interests.

From what I have heard so far, in this line were various groups of royalists, RSP supporters, Maoists, and even grassroots supporters of the UML and Congress. People from the working class were included. There was a large line of frustrated and hopeless youth. And, among those involved in the looting were professional criminals (including some who had escaped from jail) and a line of the urban poor, who got involved in such looting due to a sense of self-preservation from being in the crowd.

Those who joined thinking, "He stole because he was in the crowd, I will also steal," or "What does it matter if I don't join in such a crowd," lured by the greed to fulfill their ordinary daily needs, were included. In the experience of friends observing the crowds in Pokhara and Kathmandu, this time Indians living in these cities doing small jobs or business were in significant numbers in the looting.

What was seen here is that apart from members of political interest groups and lumpen proletariat elements like thugs and hooligans, there was predominantly the working class from the semi-unemployed and unorganized sector of the city. They were known as the chappal (slipper) class during the 2006 movement.

This latter group is the class produced by Nepal's economic policies, whose permanent address is gradually disappearing, whose life depends only on daily wages, who are unable to even provide their children education up to high school due to poverty, who keep moving residences, who sometimes eat and sometimes go hungry, whose home is in dark, cold shanties within the city's dazzling light. They have gone through the intense epidemic of family disintegration.

This class is oppressed by contractors, businessmen, doctors, police, local thugs, shopkeepers, vehicle owners, the wealthy, and the powerful. This group is the most marginalized group in Nepal. There is no possibility of old-age security, nor can they gather resources to go abroad or send their children.

This class, pushed by our education and health policies, has also heard about corruption, has experienced leaders threatening and frightening with pomp. Such tumult is the place for it to vent its anger, where it feels comparatively safe.

It feels it also has power. After the fire of change is ignited, it considers itself the emperor for a moment and dares to look anyone in the eye. If politicized properly, this should be the main force of rebellion and reconstruction.

Until this group at the base of the economy is included within the circle of institutional social security, it will use such opportunities to take revenge for its thousands of years of exploitation. It is the fire beneath the ashes our society has kept covered. It is the gunpowder ready to explode.

Any movement or revolution that does not identify and resolve the fundamental contradiction of its time, and only does minor reforms and whitewashing, keeps the possibility of rebellion alive. What has happened now is the same.

Now, an situation has been created that will keep the economy stagnant for decades and prevent it from developing. If we can learn a little from Rwanda, we can build palaces even from this rubble. An environment will be created to bring all marginalized groups into the mainstream. Otherwise, this vicious cycle of rebellion and destruction will become more powerful and continue to sweep us away.

(My article published in ONLINEKHABAR on 13 sept, 2025 was translated in english by Deepseek AI