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By:

Rupak Bardhan Roy

17 March 2026 at 2:34:57 pm

Will Gen Z Bury Political Ideology?

From Kenya to Nepal, a digitally native generation is challenging the ideological foundations on which modern politics has long rested. Between 2024 and 2026, across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, a series of rapid, leaderless political uprisings erupted, fundamentally driven by citizens under the age of thirty. Commonly dubbed as the ‘Global Gen Z uprisings,’ these movements systematically unseated ruling regimes, dismantled political dynasties, and forced constitutional re-evaluations....

Will Gen Z Bury Political Ideology?

From Kenya to Nepal, a digitally native generation is challenging the ideological foundations on which modern politics has long rested. Between 2024 and 2026, across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, a series of rapid, leaderless political uprisings erupted, fundamentally driven by citizens under the age of thirty. Commonly dubbed as the ‘Global Gen Z uprisings,’ these movements systematically unseated ruling regimes, dismantled political dynasties, and forced constitutional re-evaluations. While traditional political science has historically viewed revolutions through the lens of competing ideologies - capitalism versus socialism or secularism versus religious nationalism - the generational wave of the mid-2020s introduced an entirely different model. Driven by a hyper-connected generation demanding technocratic competence, structural fairness and the protection of their digital spaces, these movements are fundamentally post-ideological. Youth Mobilization This global cycle of youth mobilization began in June 2024 in East Africa. Entirely organized on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), young Kenyans launched the ‘Reject Finance Bill’ movement to debunk aggressive state tax hikes on everyday household necessities. Operating without traditional political figureheads, protesters utilized artificial intelligence translation tools, digital crowdfunding campaigns, and geo-located mapping to outmanoeuvre security apparatuses. The movement culminated in the breach and partial burning of the parliament building in Nairobi. President William Ruto had to completely withdraw the tax legislation and dismiss his cabinet. Weeks later, in July 2024, the operational blueprint was finalized in the student–people’s revolution in Bangladesh. University students mobilized in masses to oppose a prevalent employment quota system. In an economy choked by acute underemployment, the policy was seen as institutionalized nepotism to reward ruling party loyalists. Following a severe state crackdown, by August 2024, mass civilian marches overran Dhaka, forcing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the country, ending her fifteen-year tenure and replacing it with an interim council. Though there have been certain discourses over the movement being hijacked by the overtly fundamentalist Jamat, an open election last year has proved substantially otherwise. Similar occurrences of civil protests organized by Gen Z also erupted and flourished to success during August-September 2025 in Indonesia over Government allocation of funds for the political elites amid state’s financial constraints. The global contagion also crossed back into Africa (Madagascar) in October 2025, driven by systemic inflation and infrastructure failures. The president fled the country, and the incoming temporary administration instituted radical transparency measures. The peak of this physical confrontational phase occurred in Nepal in September 2025, during the ‘Jan Andolan III’ movement. Triggered directly by the sudden ban on twenty-six major digital platforms including TikTok and YouTube, the youth viewed this policy as a deliberate destruction of their digital livelihoods. Following a violent confrontation at Maitighar Mandala in Kathmandu, nationwide riots forced the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and eventually to the choice of judicial figurehead to lead an interim government. By early this year, the movement shifted from external street disruption to internal systemic transformation, finally embodied by Nepal’s historic general elections on March 5. Though in its nascent and purely digital counter-narrative state, this phenomenon has hit our country in the form of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP). Following the controversial remarks by the Chief Justice of India, young digital strategists launched the CJP under the hashtag ‘#MainBhiCockroach.’ The movement gained nineteen million followers in five days, proving that the undercurrents of generational frustration could bypass physical conflict entirely and manifest as overwhelming digital narrative warfare. To understand why these diverse geographic events occurred in serial concordance, one must look beyond standard copybook political explanations. Though unemployment is the structural backbone for these movements, the uprisings feature an amalgam of economic stagnation, mobility constraints and the abrupt termination of technocratic access. Historically, developing states with high youth accumulation have substantially managed domestic stability through labour migration. In Nepal, for example, nearly 14 percent of the domestic labour force works abroad, sending home remittances that account for nearly one-third of the national GDP. When global economic slowdowns, rising visa costs, and tighter immigration quotas in the Gulf States, Malaysia, and Europe closed these traditional economic exit routes, the domestic pressure intensified. This economic constraint collided directly with the ‘relative deprivation gap’ accelerated by social media. Prior to the smartphone era, the wealth gap between the ruling political class and the working-class public was mostly obscured. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube fundamentally democratized the visibility of corruption. When governments attempted to resolve the resulting social friction by imposing digital blockades, they fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the modern internet. For Gen Z, the internet was their primary economic infrastructure. Shutting it down directly dismantled their freelance networks and digital micro-enterprises. With their domestic jobs non-existent, foreign visas unobtainable, and digital spaces blocked, millions of young people were left with no alternative but to occupy the streets. What emerges as the connecting characteristic of these global movements is the absolute absence of a unifying political ideology. Bypassing prevalent debates these movements operate as hyper-focused crusades for basic institutional functionality, accountability, and meritocracy. Tactical Agility This post-ideological stance gives the modern youth movement radical tactical agility. Because they are not bound to a rigid party manifesto, they can mobilize instantly around specific, tangible grievances. Traditional state apparatuses have been designed to combat structured opposition parties through ideological propaganda and counter-narratives to neutralize decentralized networks thriving on internet culture. The emergence of the Cockroach Janata Party perfectly illustrates this dynamic. By ironically adopting a satirical manifesto that combined serious demands with absurdist declarations of being a “lazy” party, the movement insulated itself from traditional state security crackdowns. The state’s attempt to suppress the CJP by restricting its social media accounts exposed that traditional structures do not know how to politically defeat a viral meme. However, if a regime change takes place like Nepal, this lack of structural ideology creates a profound systemic void. Because these movements are unified entirely by what they 'oppose rather than what they want to 'build', the post-revolution transition period is naturally fragile. It is within this vacuum of transition that Nepal’s current political experiment has become a vital case study for global politics. The centrist, youth-backed Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) achieved an unprecedented landslide victory, the largest single-party majority since Nepal's restoration of democracy. If the Balen Shah administration achieves their proposed economic goals with acceptable deviation, it will provide a definitive proof-of-concept for modern governance: that technocratic competence can serve as a stable, standalone alternative to traditional political ideology. By treating national management as a problem of engineering and resource optimization, Nepal is actively testing whether a state can be effectively run on data, transparency and administrative efficiency. The global wave of Gen Z revolutions has fundamentally altered the rules of political engagement. Yet, the ultimate legacy of this generational shift will not be decided by the speed with which it clears the political slate, but by its capacity to govern. If the technocratic experiment currently underway in Nepal succeeds, it could serve as a blueprint for youth movements globally. Whether this marks the end of ideology or merely its latest reinvention remains uncertain. What is clear, however, is that a generation raised on algorithms, transparency and instant connectivity is no longer content to inherit the political assumptions of the twentieth century. If Gen Z succeeds in transforming protest into governance, the defining political divide of the future may no longer be between Left and Right, but between competence and incompetence. (The writer is a Lead Process Engineer with GE HealthCare in France and an author. Views personal.)

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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