Kathmandu is on edge not because of “apps,” but because a generation raised on the promise of democracy and mobility has collided with an economy and political order that keep shutting every door.
It is tempting – especially from afar – to narrate this as a clash over digital freedoms. That would be analytically thin. For Gen-Z Nepalis, platforms are not just entertainment; they are job boards, news wires, organizing tools, and social lifelines. Shutting them off – after years of economic drift – felt like collective punishment. But the deeper story is structural: Nepal’s growth has been stabilized by remittances rather than transformed by domestic investment capable of producing dignified work. In FY 2024/25, the Department of Foreign Employment issued 839,266 exit labor permits – staggering out-migration for a country of ~30 million. Remittances hovered around 33% of GDP in 2024, among the highest ratios worldwide. These numbers speak to survival, not social progress; they are a referendum on a model that exports its youth to low-wage contracts while importing basics, and that depends on patronage rather than productivity
Following Nepal’s four-year IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program, the government faced pressure to boost domestic revenue. This led to a new Digital Services Tax and stricter VAT rules for foreign e-service providers, but when major platforms refused to register, the state escalated by blocking them. This move, which began as a tax enforcement effort, quickly became a tool of digital control, and it occurred as the public was already dealing with rising fuel costs and economic hardships driven by the program’s push for fiscal consolidation.
That the crackdown and its political finale unfolded under a CPN (UML) prime minister makes this a strategic calamity for Nepal’s left. Years of factional splits, opportunistic coalitions, and policy drift had already eroded credibility among the young. When a left-branded government narrows civic space instead of widening material opportunity, it cedes the moral terrain to actors who thrive on anti-party cynicism – individual-cult politics and a resurgent monarchist right. The latter has mobilized visibly this year; with Oli’s resignation, it will seek to portray itself as the guarantor of “order,” even as its economic vision remains thin and regressive. This is the danger: the very forces most hostile to egalitarian transformation can capitalize on left misgovernance to expand their footprint.
Opposition statements recognized the larger canvas sooner than the government did. Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) expressed condolences, urged action on anti-corruption demands, and called for removing “sanctions on social networks.” The CPN (Unified Socialist) and CPN (Maoist Center) statements condemned the repression, demanded an impartial investigation, and linked digital curbs to failures on jobs and governance.
Much more at the link, give People's Dispatch the click they deserve for good work here.
I completely support a protest that's tearing down "communist flags" if the flags are of parties that clearly aren't substantively communist.
Huge agree. A political party can call themselves anything. We are only "on the same side" if the party actually represents the interests of the working class.
Particularly when the opposition that will likely take power are the Maoists. If anything this is a massive blow to the centre left in the Congress and the right wing of the alleged Marxist-Leninists.
What makes you think that?
MC are the only one left, they were also largely correct in critiquing both the corruption in UML and their coalition with the SucDems in the Congress Party. On the other hand they have their own flaws. They're at least nominally heavily influenced in Gonzalist thought (which found more fertile ground against an absolute monarchy in an agrarian state) and that can lead to some excessively Ultra takes on occasion
There's also the United Socialists who are a UML breakaway and in informal coalition with MC, being the faction that supported the short lived unification.
But honestly I want all three to overcome their differences, since I think even many UML cadre are communists in good faith.
Some say that the Monarchists might take advantage but that's unlikely given that they're only barely stopping Maoist Centre from rearming as it is.
Some sort of MC-US coalition seems like the best immediate outcome here, since there doesn't seem to be any truly revolutionary organization leading the movement. The Maoists could turn back to that, I suppose, if you're right about them being on the verge of rearming any minute. You'd think they would have been ready when this popped off then, though.
They've been very restrained and quite happy to let the MLs and especially the Congress shit the bed all on their own. This is at least partially because the current coalition was goading them into rearming in parliamentary debates, as a way of claiming they were violent radicals without a real praxis. Also the Maoists don't have as much of an Urban base due to the whole being Maoists, so they're relying on the US for urban support (and a significant portion of the protestors are United Socialist aligned) and the US is angling to reabsorb the fragmenting UML.
Reading a conversation on this site where the "US" is a positive force and the "MLs" are not is really messing with me right now
Nepalese politics is just fucked like that ¯_(ツ)_/¯
The two largest parties are no more and Maoist were the third largest have been mostly intact