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.
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