By Rajat Aikant Sharma
Yesterday, while pausing at a small tea stall on the hillside, I overheard a group of Nepali labourers—men who cross the border seasonally to work in our towns and orchards—speaking in low, worried voices.
One murmured, “At least under the King, there was order.”
Another replied, “Order maybe, but still no jobs. Now, corruption consumes everything.”
It was not a debate but a lament. And through their grief, I could hear the tremors of a nation at breaking point.
The Flash, but Not the Flame
Across the world, headlines have framed Nepal’s turmoil around the ban on 26 social media platforms – Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, X. The government claimed it was about “regulation”; the youth saw it as censorship.
But speak to Nepali workers in Dehradun, orchard hands in Himachal, or students in Delhi hostels, and you will hear a deeper story: corruption, not connectivity, lies at the heart of the fire.
Unfinished roads, unpaid wages, siphoned tenders, ghost schools, jobs promised but never delivered—social media was only the matchstick. The firewood had been stacked for decades.
The Shadow of the Crown
In such disillusionment, nostalgia returns. Many now murmur, “At least under the Shahs, there was stability.”
History reminds us that monarchy was abolished not out of whim but out of the people’s struggle for democracy and representation. Yet, when the present feels unbearable, the past often shines falsely golden.
Nepal’s youth are not marching for a King—they are marching for dignity, honesty, and a future. But in the absence of trust in political leadership, even the ghost of a crown flickers like a tempting mirage.
Streets Painted Red
What began as protests against censorship escalated into a national upheaval.
- 19 people have died in clashes.
- Over 250 have been injured, with hospitals in Kathmandu overflowing.
- The government has lifted the social media ban announcing compensation and free medical care and formed a 15-day investigation panel.
- Home Minister Ramesh Lekhak resigned, taking moral responsibility.
- Curfews remain in place in Kathmandu, Pokhara, Itahari, and Damak.
Tear gas mingles with prayer smoke. Mothers kneel beside flag-draped coffins. Youth lift smartphones like candles. Drones circle above, projecting curfew orders across smoky streets. Kathmandu today is not the city of postcards; it is both a battlefield and a funeral ground.
Students, Porters, Orchard Hands…
For India, especially the North, Nepal’s unrest is not distant news. It is lived reality.
- Students: Nepali youth fill classrooms from Dehradun to Bhubaneswar. Each crisis at home makes their future uncertain here.
- Porters: During Char Dham Yatra, Nepali porters shoulder the burdens of pilgrims up Himalayan trails.
- Orchard Hands: In Himachal, Nepali labourers harvest apples each autumn, stack firewood, and prepare villages for winter.
- City Builders: Across Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Bengal, Nepali hands build our hotels, guard our homes, serve in our restaurants.
Their absence, or their grief, is our own. India breathes when Nepal breathes; India suffers when Nepal suffers.
Nidhi Bahuguna’s Perspective
Nidhi Bahuguna—writer, teacher, motivator, and social worker based in Mussoorie—views Nepal’s unrest not merely as spontaneous anger, but as part of a deeper, engineered turbulence across Asia.
She recalls how past upheavals—such as the Maoist uprisings—were stoked by foreign interests. Today, she argues, Nepal’s shift towards Bharat, reasserting a Hindu ethos and resisting predatory conversions by US-based evangelical groups, directly challenges those global actors. Similar unrest in Bangladesh and Indonesia, she observes, follows this pattern of fault lines being widened.
She notes that India, too, has faced repeated attempts to ignite chaos: from Bhim Koregaon to Shaheen Bagh, from farmer protests to CAA agitations, from engineered riots to Manipur unrest. Each sought to exploit caste, language, religion, or regional identities. Yet, she adds, these efforts largely failed due to India’s resilience and leadership.
Her strongest warning lies in the role of youth: “Student politics is a tiger—easy to mount, but it devours you when you attempt to dismount.” Once politicised, youthful energy is often hijacked and unleashed beyond control. Nepal’s protests, in her eyes, carry that same danger—where genuine grievances risk becoming pawns in larger geopolitical games.
The Cost of Connection
This is not “foreign chaos”. Each Nepali worker lost in protests, each student trapped in anxiety, each porter uncertain of tomorrow, is a thread pulled from India’s own social fabric.
Our economies, pilgrimages, and universities are entwined. Nepal’s loss is India’s burden.
2025: The Year of Bad Omens?
This year feels cursed. Floods, wars, earthquakes, financial collapses, political unrest—everywhere, a storm. Astrologers warned that 2025 would be turbulent, and people now nod that the prophecy has come true.
But omens are not destiny. Choices are. And Nepal’s choices today—whether to confront corruption, to silence dissent, or to embrace renewal—will shape not only its own destiny but India’s as well.
Towards the Middle Path
Nepal stands at a rare crossroads:
- It could slide into semi-authoritarian stagnation, silencing its own youth.
- It could relapse into nostalgic illusions of monarchy, mistaking shadows for solutions.
- Or it could choose renewal—a politics of transparency, honesty, and dignity, led by the very generation now filling its streets.
India’s role cannot be to dictate, but to support, to listen, and to share the burden of its neighbour’s grief.
A Prayer for the Land of the Buddha
Nepal is not just another state. It is the land where Siddhartha Gautama was born, the seeker who became the Buddha.
If any land should remember that peace cannot be forced, but must be found in compassion, it is Nepal. If any land should remember that truth, not power, is the path to freedom, it is Nepal.
May this land of pilgrimage and prayer rediscover what the Buddha once sought—truth, dignity, and the middle path between extremes.
(Rajat Aikant Sharma is a writer, columnist, and photojournalist whose work spans culture, history, philosophy, and human narratives across the world.)
