The streets of Kathmandu are marked by the signs of revolution. The stains of crusted blood on the pavement being washed away by the late monsoon rains; crushed china inside the ransacked residences of politicians; the stench of smoke from torched public buildings.
But it is an inscription with black marker on a marbled wall of the charred parliament building set on fire in Nepal’s capital last week that encapsulates the moment: “From now, only Gen Z youth will be in this place. Corrupt leaders will be sent out of the country. Long Live Nepal. Long Live Gen Z youth”.
The demonstrations in Nepal have been called the protest of “Gen Z” — which generally refers to people born between 1997 and 2012 — after young people, some in school uniforms, took to the streets against what they saw as an ageing and crooked political elite.