The truth is that the political culture of democracy takes time to grow. Unless that culture takes root, positive political performance will remain a dream
One critical difference between democracy and demagogy is how disagreement plays its role in these two domains of a society. If disagreement divides political leaders, deviation follows to bring division in the paths they adopt, which in turn fetches disruption and inevitable disaster to the goals political parties adopted in their struggle to abolish a ruling regime. This, in turn, sabotages and nips the very goals of revolutionary change midway in their bud, before allowing the reactionary internal and external forces to intervene and spoil the game to achieve their intentions, covert and overt.
If the history of the various cycles of movements for democracy in Nepal teaches any lesson, it is the chronic failure of the leaders and political parties to learn the lesson: that differences should not be allowed to play themselves out to dominate their decisions. Instead they must be absorbed to find solutions and reshape their divided minds to accommodate and reformulate their disagreements and options so as to converge on consensual alternatives. But this is the perennial challenge facing political innovators, which becomes impossible when ego drives their decision and greed or some negative political urge for power takes command. Unfortunately, in Nepal's political history for democratic struggle, every movement has taken this mode to sabotage the whole course – from the early forties of the last century down to the Gen-Z movement.
The key curiosity about the election for the new House is therefore not which party wins, who loses, why, and how, but what kind of outcome the election will bring: Can it achieve the three major goals for which the 77 youth fought and fell on September 8 and 9: abolition of corruption, establishment of good governance, and media freedom, apart from punishment for the culprits of the past regimes?
Going by the signals coming so far, the hopes are unfortunately fast dwindling, raising fears that the unmusical race for political chairs are likely to continue. And the rumours in town now taking the rounds tell us the movement has been captured and infiltrated by agents and elements sinisterly busy at their own games. Evidence is fragmentary so far but does not look implausible, raising the dire question: Is Nepal becoming the cockpit of Asia like Belgium in the two world wars?
All of this is not to acquit the past culprits who deserve their places behind the bars. But when the regime in power decides to hide the report under investigation on the carnage, arson, sabotage, and vandalism that filled the two horrible days of the Gen-Z movement, there is reason to suspect its intention to keep the report away from the public as before, and making the going safe for those who must be accused, exposed, and charged for justice in the name of democratic election. If this is not demagogy, what is?
Just as awareness of political issues on the anvil and the agendas at stake do not correlate immediately with political activism – there are other elements at work such as public articulation, advocacy, association, and action-interaction to complete the process that make it sustainable and institutionalised, a process I regard as the 5-A chain of social transformation, critical to the sustenance of a movement for social change – one can hypothesise that election to the House of Representatives alone is not directly correlated to the right kind of performance and delivery.
The point here is, representation may be essential, but not sufficient by itself. What makes the process sufficient is delivery, but that, in turn, demands a corporate will, which means the gut, the grit as well as the grey matter (vision with a concrete pragmatic strategy) to make the process complete. It is that goal that the people of Nepal have been waiting for more than half a century.
Given the faith that Nepal's public at large reposed repeatedly on the still nascent republican democracy and their trust in its ability to deliver, neither anarchist nor monarchist elements are ultimately going to prevail here. But the fact that at least 48% of the Nepal Institute for Policy Research (NIPoRE) respondents stand for jailing the culprits shows how high and strong the feelings run.
At a time when youth unemployment has soared to 12.6%, the centrifugal tendency to escape abroad has risen three times in a decade, and trust in the political parties has plummeted, hopes are rising mixed with fears of deepening uncertainty, for which there is reason. The deep distrust in the parties has been revealed already by earlier surveys, but NIPoRE and the more recent Kantipur and Sharecast Initiative surveys again show political leaders to be mainly responsible for malgovernance. In the latter case, nearly two-fifths of the respondents hold no trust in them (1 March 2026) and an even larger proportion disbelieve the government agencies can control corruption (27 February 2026), even if a substantial proportion feel that government services have improved (28 February 2026), due probably to the initiatives taken by the new regime with quite a few individuals with a cleaner public image than before apart from the slight generational shift on the demographics of the young candidates.
The truth is that the political culture of democracy takes time to grow. Unless that culture takes root, positive political performance will remain a dream. What Rwanda achieved and the Upper Volta is doing today are two major exceptions in this regard. Do we have statesmen of their stature? Exceptions only underscore the rule that dominates the scene in Nepal where the perils and pitfalls in the process of democratic transition have long taken charge to remain the patterns.
The fragmentation of the Gen-Z movement muting into a multi-headed front vindicates the point made at the start and the unprecedented pillage and destruction that followed in the next 24 hours only showcase how a movement can turn into a disaster. At the same time, it also demonstrates the double-edged power of digital activity. If it delivers, it can also destroy. One can only wish the parties have learned the lesson. Else, history will repeat the events, again and again.
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