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The crisis in Nepal is part of a wider wave of unexpected popular uprisings and regime changes in South Asia. It was preceded by a similar phenomenon in Sri Lanka in 2022 and Bangladesh in 2024. This wave is the fall out of an explosive cocktail of domestic turmoil and occurs against the backdrop of regional and global geo-political rivalries.

South Asia’s domestic terrain is on the boil owing to demographic and developmental changes.  

States in the world’s most populous sub-regions have not been able to meet the aspirations of this demographic bulge. The pace of development is slow and highly inequitable. Governance is fraught with corruption, nepotism, inefficiency and repression. Frustrated by their conditions, people are reacting with huge demonstrations, aggressive uprisings and violence. In the hands of tech savvy youngsters, social media is facilitating networking and the mobilisation of widespread popular dissent.

Fuelling this domestic fire are regional and global geopolitical rivalries, with China on one side and the US and India on the other competing for strategic presence and influence. Over the past decade, particularly under President Xi, China has built high stakes across Asia. Its stakes in South Asia, a densely populated, fast-growing and strategically located region bordering its turbulent western frontier and the Indian Ocean, have become sharper and deeper. Through economic incentives, cultural outreach and diplomatic moves, Beijing has sought to shape and sustain friendly regimes in the region.

This growing Chinese presence is not palatable to India and the US, and both of them have used all their diplomatic and political capabilities to contain Beijing. In supporting the popular uprising against the Rajapaksa regime in Sri Lanka, both India and the US appeared to be on the same page. In Bangladesh however, the US dislike for the Hasina regime and preference for the BNP was in direct conflict with that of India’s. In Nepal too, there seems to be a degree of convergence between the US and India in the disapproval of the Oli regime, seen by them as overtly pro-China.

The wave of regime change in South Asia must be seen in the context of domestic turmoil amplified by geopolitical rivalries. Recent political shifts in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal share striking similarities: sudden uprisings of unexpected scale, triggered by economic hardship for ordinary people and the repressive methods of ruling regimes.The uprisings have been led by largely unconventional, marginalised and youthful leadership, but extensively supported by wider sections of society. In all three cases, varying degrees of violence, arson, targeted attacks on political leadership and governing systems have been witnessed. 

The political explosion against the regime was the loudest and most brutal In Nepal. Sixty lives and counting are estimated to have been lost and more than a thousand casualties are being treated in hospitals. A large number of public and personal properties........

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