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“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible and achieve it, generation after generation.” - Pearl S Buck

There is a story every Nepali knows. It is the story of young people who stood in the streets of Kathmandu in 1990 with nothing but courage in their hearts and democracy on their lips. Students who had every reason to stay silent chose instead to speak out and change the course of their nation forever. That story is real. That story is powerful.

But there is another story too. One that is harder to tell and harder to hear. It is the story of a student from a remote village who borrowed money from relatives to come to Kathmandu for a degree, only to find the campus shut down again because of a bandha nobody consulted her about. It is the story of dreams arriving at a university gate and leaving through it, quietly broken.

Both stories are true. Both stories are from Nepal. And the painful tension between them is exactly what makes student politics one of the most urgent and most unresolved conversations this generation needs to have.

A legacy written in courage

To understand what student politics has become, we must first understand what it once was and what it was capable of.

Students played an important and instrumental role throughout Nepal’s political history, particularly in the success of the democratic mass movements of 1990 and 2006. They marched when the elders hesitated. They spoke when the powerful tried to silence everyone. They bled on the streets so that future generations could live with rights and freedoms they themselves might never fully enjoy.

The history of student activism in Nepal is more than just a memory. When leaders talk about the past, they are pointing to a time when young people were the true engine of change. In 1990, students pushed for democracy when the path seemed blocked. They proved that when a generation cares about something bigger than themselves, they can rewrite history.

For seven decades, campuses served as the training grounds for Nepal’s leaders. It was where people first learned how to stand together and how democracy works. At its best, student politics is not about party flags or winning seats. It is about the grit to see something wrong and refuse to stay quiet.

That spirit is still here. You see it every time a student asks a tough question in class, a group of peers gathers to solve a problem. That is the real legacy of student politics. It is the simple and brave act of caring.

 When the system began consuming its own

But somewhere along the way, something broke.

Ever since the 1960s, political parties in Nepal have treated campuses like nurseries for their own survival. They used student groups to recruit new faces, while student leaders leaned on these parties to jumpstart their own political careers. What started as a shared vision quickly soured into a toxic loop of dependency and exploitation.

Now, students are the ones paying the price. The academic calendar is a ghost, vanishing every time a political strike locks the gates. When student unions split along party lines, merit is tossed aside in favor of political favors.

The numbers are a mess. Tribhuvan University teaches 75 percent of the country, yet it rarely finishes a semester on time. A four-year degree can easily stretch into six years of waiting. This is not just a scheduling error. It is a human cost. Every extra year represents a family sinking deeper into debt and a young person watching their prime years slip away.

Corruption has seeped into every classroom. Last year, education complaints were among the highest reported to the national anti-corruption agency. Sadly, student politics has become both the victim of this broken system and the engine that keeps it running.

The patron and the puppet

Perhaps the most damaging truth about student politics in Nepal is one that is rarely spoken. Most student organizations in Nepal are not truly independent. Student leaders often talk about fighting for better facilities and basic rights to justify what they do. But in reality, it is hard to tell if they are working for the students or just following party orders.

After the big changes in 1990, these student groups lost their main enemy and struggled to find a new purpose. To stay relevant, they tied themselves even closer to big political parties. What started as sharing the same ideas slowly turned into a total reliance on them. Student leaders became political tools, and campuses turned into places for finding new party members. The average student, who just came to university to learn, was forgotten in a game played by people with their own agendas.

Experts who study education in Nepal say this ‘boss and worker’ relationship between parties and student groups is holding back the entire school system. This is not just a random guess. It is a conclusion based on years of research and the actual lives of people at every university in the country.

The question nobody wants to answer

And yet, the story does not end with destruction.

The Sept 2025 protests in Nepal were about much more than a social media ban. While the ban was the final spark, the movement was actually an explosion of anger over corruption and the loss of freedom of speech. It became the deadliest political struggle since the republic began in 2008. These protests showed a massive wave of young people rising against inequality and a deep sense of hopelessness. Crucially, these were not the usual protests ordered by party bosses. They were different because young people acted on their own conscience rather than following a command.

This difference is a big deal. It shows that the true spirit of student activism, the kind that changed Nepal in 1990, is still alive. It has just been buried under years of political control. When the pressure gets too high, that spirit finds a way to break through.

The government under Prime Minister Balen Shah later introduced a major reform plan. Point 86 of this plan says that all political student groups must remove their offices from schools and universities. Some student leaders call this a move toward dictatorship. However, legal experts say it is a valid step. While some argue the move ignores rights, experts like Chandrakanta Gyawali point out that although the constitution allows people to form unions, it does not specifically protect political unions tied to major parties.

This debate is exactly the kind Nepal needs to be having. Not a debate about whether student politics should exist, but about what kind of student politics deserves to exist.

What genuine student politics looks like

Real student politics, student politics in its truest and most powerful form, looks nothing like what most Nepali campuses experience today.

It looks like students are organizing to demand better quality education, transparent fee structures, and accountability from university administrations. It looks like student leaders who actually attend the same classes, eat in the same canteens, and feel the same frustrations as the students they claim to represent. It looks like campus elections decided by ideas rather than by party muscle and political connections. It looks like a young generation that is politically aware without being politically captured. That understands the difference between civic engagement and party service. That can criticize any government regardless of which party is in power, because its loyalty belongs to students and to the country rather than to any flag or symbol.

This is not an impossible vision. It exists in universities around the world. Nepal had something close to it once. The question is whether this generation has both the awareness to see what has been lost and the courage to demand it back.

Conclusion

Student politics gave Nepal democracy. It has also stolen years of education from hundreds of thousands of students who deserved far better. Both of these truths must be held together honestly if this conversation is ever going to lead anywhere meaningful.

Youth serves as a mechanism for political reproduction and change in Nepal's democracy. That sentence carries both the promise and the danger of student politics within it. Young people can reproduce the best of what came before them or they can reproduce the worst. They can be the agents of change or the instruments of those who resist it.

The future of student politics in Nepal does not belong to the party bosses who have shaped it so far. It belongs to the students currently sitting in classrooms across this country, deciding what they believe in, deciding who they will become, and deciding whether the legacy of 1990 is something they will honor with their actions or simply mention in their speeches.

That decision, more than any election or bandha or government reform agenda, is where the real power has always lived.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” -Nelson Mandela

There is a scene that has repeated itself with enough regularity in Nepal over the past few years that it has started to feel normal. A government directive needs to be carried out. Maybe it is a demolition order, maybe an eviction, maybe the detention of a businessman or a political figure. Before courts have issued rulings, before affected parties have been notified, before any of the usual administrative processes have run their course, security forces arrive. The operation is swift. The result is visible. The process was the operation itself.

This is not how governance is supposed to work. But under Balendra Shah, first as mayor of Kathmandu Metropolitan City and now as Prime Minister, it has increasingly become how governance works. Security forces are being used not to respond to genuine threats but to execute administrative objectives that would otherwise require the slower, messier work of going through courts, councils and proper institutional channels. The force does not follow the decision. The force is the decision.

The April 2026 evictions along the Bagmati riverbank brought this pattern into sharp relief. Thousands of people, many of them from poor and marginalized communities who had lived along the river for years, were displaced through operations in which security personnel were the most visible presence. There were no adequate resettlement alternatives. The timelines did not allow for meaningful legal challenge. Families lost homes, documents and livelihoods in a process where due process was not delayed or imperfect but structurally absent. The security operation was the entire governance process.

To understand why this matters, it helps to be clear about what it is and is not. This is not a story about a government deploying security forces inappropriately in a crisis. Every government does that. This is something different: a pattern in which security deployment has become the routine mechanism for achieving governance objectives, rather than an exceptional response when everything else has failed. The difference is not semantic. One is emergency governance; the other is governance by emergency.

Nepal’s security forces are paying a price for this that rarely gets discussed. During the decade-long armed conflict (1996-2006), the Nepal Police, the Armed Police Force and the then Royal Nepali Army accumulated deep public distrust through documented brutality and rights violations against civilians. Entering the peace process gave them an opportunity to rebuild. Democratic positioning of the army along with programs like Police My Friend and community policing initiatives were deliberate efforts to change the relationship between uniformed personnel and the communities around them. Those efforts took years and produced real, measurable improvement in how Nepali people related to the institutions meant to serve them.

Much of that rebuilt trust collapsed during the GenZ protest movement of Sept 2025. The crackdown on protesters produced images that will not quickly fade: police officers abandoning their posts, weapons left behind in the chaos. The Nepali Army’s conduct raised separate and equally serious questions. When major public infrastructures were set ablaze during the protests, including Singhdurbar (the seat of the Executive), the Supreme Court and the Office of the President, the army stood conspicuously passive. Its failure to intervene to protect institutions of the state has never been satisfactorily explained to the public. 

More recently, reports of the army collecting data on landless people across various districts have raised alarm about whether it is operating beyond the boundaries its constitutional mandate sets. When the institution charged with defending the constitution appears to be overreaching into civilian administrative functions, it signals a deeper confusion about what security forces are for.

The Bagmati evictions have added yet another layer. Security personnel are being publicly identified as the people who came and took away the homes of families who had nowhere else to go. Whether those officers agreed with the orders or had any say in the decision are questions most observers are not stopping to ask. The association between the force and the harm is direct and visible. The policy decision that produced the harm is several steps removed and considerably less visible. The government makes the call; the security forces wear the consequences.

Running underneath all of this is a problem that Nepal has never adequately confronted: there is no clear, publicly understood framework for when government security forces should be deployed and when they should not. Even where rules exist in law, they have not been communicated in any meaningful way to the public. This ambiguity is not a technical oversight. It is a structural vulnerability. When the boundaries of legitimate deployment are vague, those boundaries become easy to push. Leaders in government can use security forces to consolidate their hold on power, to intimidate opponents, and to bypass institutional checks, all without obviously crossing a line that has never been clearly drawn. 

Left uncorrected, this is precisely the environment in which elected authoritarianism takes root. A leader arrives through the ballot box but governs through coercion, and the institutions that should resist find they have no clear ground to stand on.

None of this means that governments should not enforce laws, that informal settlements on public land are beyond regulation, or that accountability for corruption does not matter. Legitimate governance pursues legitimate objectives. But it pursues them through processes that respect rights, allow for contestation, and remain accountable to the people they affect. When security force deployment substitutes for that process, even legitimate objectives become harder to defend.

Since People’s Movement 2006, Nepal has spent 20 long years building, imperfectly and unevenly, a democratic system premised on civilian supremacy over security forces. That principle is not self-enforcing. It requires clearly defined rules about when the state's coercive apparatus can be activated, by whom, and subject to what oversight. What is needed now is not simply a change in political leadership but a serious, public reckoning with the scope and limits of security force deployment in a democracy. The habits being established today will be difficult to unlearn. 

A government that routinely governs by force teaches its successors that force is how governing is done. That lesson, once normalized, does not stay contained to one administration. It becomes available to whoever comes next, with whatever objectives they happen to hold.

That is the question worth sitting with: not whether Balendra Shah's governance goals are right or wrong, but whether the way he is pursuing them is building the Nepal he says he wants, or quietly dismantling the foundations that any decent governance ultimately depends on.

The author is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, USA

While the conclusion of a ‘highly productive’ visit of Sergio Gor, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, on May 4 might seem like routine diplomacy, it takes on a sharper significance when paired with Assistant Secretary Samir Paul Kapur’s April engagement with the Balendra Shah government. Together, these back-to-back engagements signal a deliberate recalibration of US policy toward Nepal. At a time of intensifying regional rivalry, Washington is moving beyond traditional rapport, while Kathmandu appears increasingly determined to navigate this geopolitical competition on its own terms. 

The visits reflect a broader shift in the diplomatic grammar of South Asia, where smaller states such as Nepal are no longer treated merely as passive recipients of geopolitical attention, but as increasingly important strategic actors capable of managing external engagement on their own terms. The standalone nature of Kapur’s visit was itself diplomatically significant. Unlike previous senior US officials who often combined Nepal with wider regional tours, his direct visit to Kathmandu signaled that Nepal is gaining independent strategic relevance within Washington’s South Asia policy. Increasingly, the United States views smaller South Asian states—including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka—as geopolitically consequential because of their strategic location bordering Xinjiang, Tibet, and the Malacca Strait connectivity potential, and growing importance within the wider regional competition involving China, India, and the United States.

During the Feb hearing, the US House subcommittee emphasized bipartisan recognition that Nepal—strategically located between India and China—occupies a sensitive geopolitical position. Kapur had stated that preventing domination by any single power in South Asia is a core US objective.

“A hostile power dominating South Asia could exert coercive leverage over the world economy,” he said, adding the US must prevent this from happening and keep the region free and open.

Two visits, one pattern

The visit by S Paul Kapur—centered on political engagement, governance reform and institutional dialogue—effectively set the stage for Washington’s renewed outreach to Nepal. It reflected a traditional yet evolving US diplomatic approach: engage early with emerging political leadership, assess the direction of political transition and identify potential partners for long-term strategic and institutional cooperation. But the significance of Kapur’s visit extended far beyond routine diplomacy. It signaled Washington’s recognition that Nepal is no longer viewed merely as a peripheral bilateral partner, but increasingly as a strategically important state situated between India and China within the broader geopolitical competition shaping South Asia and the Indo-Pacific.

Kapur’s earlier congressional remarks underscored that preventing the domination of the region by any single power remains a core US strategic objective. The standalone nature of his Kathmandu visit was therefore diplomatically significant. Unlike previous senior US officials who often folded Nepal into wider regional tours, Kapur’s direct engagement suggested that Nepal is gaining independent strategic attention within Washington’s South Asia policy. Increasingly, the US views smaller South Asian states—including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives—as geopolitically consequential because of their location, connectivity potential and exposure to external strategic competition. In that context, the Kapur visit also highlighted a broader reality: Nepal’s domestic political transitions are increasingly being interpreted internationally through a geopolitical and strategic lens rather than purely as internal democratic developments.

Gor’s visit builds on that foundation but shifts the emphasis. His engagements with Rabi Lamichhane, Shisir Khanal, and Swarnim Wagle were not just courtesy calls. They were targeted interactions with the nodes of political authority, economic policymaking including new US business opportunities in the dynamic tech sector, expanding commercial ties and reform momentum within the new government.

The messaging was consistent across both visits: Nepal’s current political moment—defined by a reform-oriented mandate—is an opportunity the United States does not intend to miss.

Washington’s playbook: Early engagement, economic anchoring

Taken together, these visits reflect a familiar but refined US playbook, which appears to pursue three interconnected objectives.

First, the United States sought to establish early political communication in political transition with the new administration and better understand its governing priorities and strategic orientation. By reaching out soon after the formation of a new government, Washington seeks to shape perceptions, build trust and secure a seat at the table as policies evolve.

Second, Washington aimed to anchor continuity in economic and strategic engagement, particularly regarding implementation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Nepal Compact, expansion of US investment, trade cooperation, digital connectivity and broader economic partnerships rather than security. The prominence of discussions around investment climate reform, private sector growth and technology partnerships—alongside continued emphasis on the MCC compact—signals a deliberate choice. In a region sensitive to geopolitical signaling, economic cooperation offers a lower-friction entry point.

Third, and more strategically, the visit reflected growing US concern regarding the expansion of Chinese influence across South Asia by diversifying engagement beyond the immediate neighbors.

Both visits included interactions with business leaders and non-governmental actors, reflecting an understanding that influence in Nepal is not monopolized by formal political institutions.

This is not containment. It is not coercion. It is competitive engagement through opportunity.

The prime minister’s doctrine: Assertion of sovereign protocol

Yet, the most striking feature of Kapur and Gor’s visit was not what happened—but what did not. The Prime Minister and the President did not meet the US envoys, maintaining a position that he would not engage with officials below a certain rank and would prioritize domestic governance over diplomatic interactions.

This is more than a scheduling decision. It is a doctrinal signal.

Nepal, under its current leadership, appears to be experimenting with a new diplomatic posture—one that emphasizes hierarchy, selectivity and sovereign confidence. The intent is understandable. For decades, Nepal’s foreign policy has often been reactive, shaped by external pressures and internal fragility. A more assertive approach seeks to correct that imbalance.

In principle, this reflects a maturing state: one that chooses when and how to engage, rather than responding to every overture.

But diplomacy is as much about timing and signaling as it is about principle.

Between principle and pragmatism

Neither the Head of the State nor the Head of the Government had a talk with the two US officials, pointing out a stiffness between protocol and pragmatism.

On one hand, it reinforces: a message of dignity and self-respect; a departure from aid-dependent optics and a focus on internal governance as the primary national priority.

But on the other hand, it raises questions: does rigid adherence to hierarchy risk missing strategic opportunities? Could it create perceptions of inaccessibility among key partners? Does it limit Nepal’s ability to shape external narratives at critical moments?

In practice, even major powers exercise flexibility when strategic engagement demands it. For a country like Nepal—situated between competing global and regional interests—the cost of missed conversations can outweigh the benefits of strict protocol.

The economic battleground: Where influence will be decided

Both visits converge on a central theme: Nepal’s future partnerships will be decided in the economic domain. Discussions on investment climate reforms, technology collaboration, infrastructure development and private sector expansion are not peripheral—they are the core of modern geopolitical competition.

The focus on Nepal’s tech sector and the demonstration of drone technology in Sagarmatha operations highlight a subtle but important shift. The US is not merely offering aid; it is positioning itself as a partner in innovation ecosystems.

This approach has two advantages. One, it aligns with Nepal’s aspirations for economic transformation and it avoids triggering geopolitical anxieties associated with overt strategic or military engagement. In effect, the US is saying: partnership without pressure, opportunity without overt alignment.

Cultural diplomacy: The quiet reinforcer

Amid the strategic and economic discussions, the return of the Akshobhya Buddha statue stands out as a quieter but deeply significant gesture. Cultural restitution is not transactional; it is relational.

Such actions build long-term goodwill, reinforce trust beyond policy cycles and position the US as a respectful partner in heritage and identity. In a country like Nepal, where culture and sovereignty are closely intertwined, these gestures carry weight that often exceeds their immediate visibility.

The regional context: A crowded strategic space

These developments cannot be viewed in isolation. Nepal today sits at the intersection of intensifying multiple strategic currents—US-China competition, India’s enduring strategic centrality and the broader recalibration of South Asian geopolitics.

What distinguishes the current moment is not the presence of external interest—but its diversification.

Unlike previous eras, where geopolitical engagement often came with clear alignments, today’s environment is more fluid. Economic projects, technological partnerships, and institutional reforms have become the primary instruments of influence.

For Nepal, this presents both an opportunity and a challenge.

The strategic imperative for Nepal

The convergence of visits by Samir Paul and Sergio Gor underscores a simple reality: Nepal always matters more today than it did a decade ago—not as a battleground, but as a partner space.

The question is not whether Nepal will be engaged. It is how Nepal will manage that engagement.

Three strategic imperatives stand out. One is calibrated engagement when Nepal must engage all partners—India, China, the US, and others—through structured and transparent frameworks. Selectivity is useful, but it must not become exclusion.

Second is flexible diplomacy. Protocol should guide diplomacy, not constrain it. Strategic flexibility allows Nepal to extract maximum benefit without compromising dignity.

Third is issue-based alignment. Rather than aligning with powers, Nepal should align with issues: infrastructure, energy, technology, governance reform. This reduces geopolitical risk while maximizing developmental gains.

Conclusion: Convergence or drift?

The back-to-back engagements by US officials signal intent: Washington is ready to invest—politically, economically and symbolically—in Nepal’s transition.

Kathmandu, meanwhile, is signaling something equally important—a desire to redefine how it is engaged.

Whether these two trajectories converge will determine the future of the relationship.

If managed well, Nepal can transform external interest into internal strength—leveraging partnerships without becoming dependent on them. If mismanaged, the gap between engagement and assertion could widen into quiet misalignment.

In the end, diplomacy is not about who visits or who declines to meet. It is about whether those interactions—taken together—advance national interest.

Nepal stands at a moment where it can do precisely that. The question is whether it will choose adaptation over rigidity, and strategy over symbolism.

The author is a Major General (retired) of the Nepali Army and a strategic affairs analyst. He is also a researcher and is affiliated with Rangsit University in Thailand

As we observe Law Day on May 9, it is a moment not just for celebration, but also for honest reflection. The day marks the enforcement of the Supreme Court Act and symbolizes our commitment to the rule of law. Yet, an uncomfortable question remains: have we truly succeeded in enforcing our legal mandates in both letter and spirit?

Many argue that Nepal’s commitment to the rule of law still falls short of what our Constitution promises. Laws look impressive when written, but they lose their meaning if they remain only in books. When legal provisions are not followed in practice, they become little more than decorative words.

Take, for instance, the clear constitutional provision under Article 132, which bars former Justices or Chief Justices of the Supreme Court from holding government positions. Despite this, we have witnessed instances that appear to contradict this mandate. During the 2013 Constituent Assembly elections, former Chief Justice Khil Raj Regmi simultaneously held the position of Chief Justice and head of the executive (while the legislature was in a state of animated suspension). 

Such events raise serious concerns about separation of power and constitutional compliance.

Another example lies in the formation of oversized cabinets in the past, which seem to go beyond the limits envisioned under Article 76. When constitutional provisions are bent or ignored for political convenience, it weakens public trust in governance.

Fate of fundamental rights

The gap between enactment and enforcement is more visible in everyday life. Article 30 of the Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to a clean environment. Yet, pollution continues to affect cities and towns across the country.

Likewise, the Constitution guarantees the right to employment, but hundreds of youths leave Nepal every day in search of jobs abroad. If rights exist only on paper, can we truly say they exist at all?

The same can be said about the right to housing. Many citizens still struggle to find adequate shelter despite this being a fundamental right. As consumers, people are frequently overcharged, with prices of goods varying widely from one shop to another without transparency. Restaurants and hotels often charge arbitrarily, raising questions about the enforcement of consumer protection laws.

Political appointments

The Constitution also envisions fair and merit-based appointments in public offices. However, reality often tells a different story. Many individuals appointed (in previous governments) to key positions have strong political affiliations rather than proven competence.

It is not uncommon to find that loyalty to political parties outweighs merit and qualifications. This creates a system where capable individuals are overlooked, while less qualified individuals are elevated.

Question of rule of law

This situation reflects what legal scholar AV Dicey warned about when he discussed the rule of law. He emphasized that laws must not only exist but must also be applied equally and fairly. If political influence dominates legal processes, the very foundation of the rule of law is shaken.

It raises a deeper question: are we moving toward a “rule of law” or merely a “rule by law”? The difference is crucial. The rule of law ensures fairness, accountability and equality before the law. Rule by law uses laws as tools to serve those in power.

The consequences of this gap are visible. Many young people feel disappointed and see no future within the country. They look abroad for opportunities, believing that merit is better recognized elsewhere.

Even within the bureaucracy and other sectors, frustration grows when capable individuals remain stuck while others rise through political connections.

So, has the system failed us, or have we failed the system? The answer likely lies somewhere in between. Political leaders often act in their own interests, but citizens, institutions, and watchdog bodies also have a role in demanding accountability.

Law Day should not be reduced to a symbolic event marked by speeches and ceremonies. It should serve as a reminder that laws must be implemented, not just written. Observing Law Day without ensuring implementation risks turning it into an empty ritual.

Way forward

If Nepal is serious about strengthening democracy, it must commit to implementing the Constitution fully and faithfully. This means respecting constitutional limits, ensuring merit-based appointments, protecting fundamental rights and holding violators accountable—regardless of their position.

Otherwise, the gap between promise and practice will only widen. And, if that happens, the celebration of Law Day will lose its meaning, becoming just another date on the calendar rather than a true reflection of justice in action.

In a country where many people still face problems like distance, poverty and language barriers in reaching the courts, Law Day reminds the government that “justice delayed is justice denied.”

Law Day acts as a guiding light for the nation. The 2015 Constitution brought major changes in how power is shared, and the judiciary now plays a key role in settling important political disputes.

It also shows that no matter how serious political instability may be, the Constitution remains supreme. The day honors the strength of legal institutions that have continued through many changes—from monarchy to republic, and from conflict to peace.