In the country of Nepal, protests broke out in the capital city of Kathmandu and other major cities on Thurs, Sept 8. These demonstrations were primarily led by members of Generation Z to rally against corruption and the social media ban that took effect on Sept 4.
While this fight took place an ocean away from Cape Girardeau, SEMO is home to a number of international students and faculty from Nepal.
Assistant director of international admissions Paliza Shrestha explained that the Gen Z protest was meant to be peaceful.
“The original protest was for anti-corruption. So the Gen Z’s had plans to get together on Sept. 8 for peaceful protest. They wanted to protest the corruption of the government that has existed for multi-generations,” Shrestha said.
Much of Gen Z’s frustration stemmed from the vast disparity between the wealthy ruling class and ordinary working people.
Assistant biology professor Dr. Nelish Pradhan said that many of the working class in Nepal were forced to go abroad to find jobs.
“They were probably brought up in a country where they thought they had a lot of promise, new possibilities, but as things unfolded it seems that there were very few opportunities when they actually grew up to be adults,” Pradhan said. “Most people of that generation were either forced to go out to foreign countries as migrant laborers and they would be doing work like construction or working in other service sectors in countries in the middle east or Malaysia or Indonesia.”
According to Shrestha, out of the 30 million people who live in Nepal, 800,000 people leave the country every year to find work.
“If we traveled to some villages that are outside the cities, remote villages, you will find that the age distribution there is sort of bimodal, really, either young kids or old people, the working age people are all gone,” Pradham said.
Even with many Nepalese going abroad to find jobs, the conditions for the working class were not improving.
“Even so with all the remittance money being sent and people’s economic conditions not improving at the same time and simultaneously the rich politician’s children flaunting their extravagant lifestyle on social media, there was a lot of bent up frustrations among the youth,” Shrestha said.
While the protest on Sept. 8 was intended to be a peaceful release of frustration, it did not end that way. Nineteen people were killed in the protests, several of whom were students in school uniforms.
“The peaceful protest turned violent because the government gave the order for the police to shoot,” Shrestha said. “...There were actually a lot of the people who were protesting were school children, 18,19, 20 you know. So from 8 year old to 21 years olds died, people of that age. So that was the thing that caused outlash and outrage among the whole nation.”
During the tragic chaos, thousands of miles away in Cape Girardeau, over 100 Nepalese students gathered outside Kent Library to honor those who were killed. The Nepal flag was sketched in chalk by the fountain, surrounded by lit candles and the words “please pray for the departed souls”.
Nepalese Student Association President Kritan Babu Aryal helped arrange the memorial.
“We never thought this situation would come, so it really broke our hearts and though we saw the people who died, they were not the ones who were exaggerating the situation. They were the real changes who are just doing the peaceful protest in their college race or in their Gen Z group, just protesting through their speech and they were killed,” Aryal said. “So, it was very terrifying. So we just thought, come up with this idea, let’s just pay tribute to them.”
Aryal explained that many of his Nepalese friends were shocked by the violence in their home country.
“Most of us were shocked, hearing our government, I don’t know who did it, but the government protesters just lost their lives, a few of them lost their lives. So all of us were terrified, like we are here, we can’t do anything except calling your home,” Aryal said.
Despite the killing on Sept. 8, the protests did not stop. On Sept. 9, the demonstrations escalated as Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned from his position. Several government buildings were burned, including the Supreme Court, parliament and the private residence of Oli.
“Twenty plus ministers resigned from their position, some were chased down the streets. They were literally running and being chased by people,” Shrestha said. “Their houses were burned down after people went to their houses. The next day, they found huge stacks of money, US dollars and gold. In three or four bedrooms they would be stacked with money and gold.”
That same day, the social media ban was lifted, but calm was not restored until that evening, when the Nepal army took control of the streets and imposed a nationwide curfew on Sept. 10. Negotiations began between the government, army and the protesters.
On Friday, Sept 12, Nepal’s President Ram Chandra Poudel appointed former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister, the first female to take the position. The president also declared that the parliament was dissolved and formal elections would be held on March 5, 2026.
Seventy-two people were killed and over 2,113 were injured in the wake of the protests. With a new interim government in place, Aryal remains skeptical about the current situation in his country.
“For now, it seems good, but at the same time there is another group, they are saying it might be bad because we never planned to be in this situation,” Aryal said, “So you never know it’s in a confusing state.”
