top of page

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.)

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Mamata is seeing a ghost of Bangladesh behind the massive outrage and waves of protest over rape and murder of the trainee doctor. And the reasons are many.

It’s been over a fortnight. Yet with each passing day the voice of protest is getting louder and stronger. From the streets of Kolkata it’s pouring into roads of hinterland. The cry for justice for a rape victim has consolidated into a wail of demands to set a lot of wrongdoings right. Here in lies the fear and trepidation. Wasn’t the issue that brought the youth of Bangladesh out on the thoroughfares a simple, innocent one of quota reform?

The chief minister of Bengal, known for understanding the pulse of people better than many, was quick to read the signages floating in the political horizon.

The most obvious reason for her to be tensed is that both the regime change in Bangladesh and the mass protest in Bengal, were student-driven to begin with. The two incidents---end of 15 year old Sheikh Hasina government and turbulence in West Bengal, over the heinous crime, falling back to back, the first on August 5th and the latter from August 9th onwards, give natural scope for comparisons. More so, because in both the cases the movement strayed beyond an affected constituency to include aggrieved people at large, cutting across socio-economic demography. If the quota reform protest started by students in Bangladesh became a mass uprising against an autocratic regime, the campaign demanding justice for the rape victim and overall safety and security of women in Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal soon snowballed into a movement of no-confidence against the government. Slogans--”Mamata must resign” also got floated in social media much in line with the call for ouster of Sheikh Hasina. In fact “Resignation of Hasina” became the single point agenda into which all other fringe demands coalesced.

Incidentally, even before people started drawing parallels, that there could be a thread of commonality in the way the upheaval in Bangladesh and Bengal played out, Mamata was quick to point out that the Opposition were trying to pull off a Bangladesh by politicizing the tragic incident: “A coordinated approach has been executed by the BJP and the CPIM with support from the Centre to defame Bengal and exploit the situation....They want to make a Bangladesh here. They are taking cues from student unrest in Bangladesh and are attempting to capture similarly. I have no longing for the chair. I came here to serve people.”

Not only Mamata, her political lieutenants are consistently equating the turmoil in Bengal with the mayhem in Bangladesh. Cabinet minister for North Bengal development Udayan Guha threatened to take stern action against those, who would be trying to exploit the situation by emulating a Bangladesh like movement. “ Even after the hospital was vandalised, the police did not open fire on anyone. The police will not allow a Bangladesh type situation. We will not allow Bengal to turn into Bangladesh, Guha thundered.

Is the government’s fear unfounded?

Apart from the similarities on ground zero, as to how and where the future course of events are heading to, there are ample reasons for Bengal to mull on-- as to what led to a Bangladesh like boiling point. To begin with, it’ll be appropriate to talk of Bangladesh and the prevailing situation, that made the students’ protest become big in magnitude. The students were out on the streets because of a high reservation in public jobs. Unemployment and stagnant job market in private sector coupled with a high rate of inflation drove the educated youth to rebel against the government.

But soon the students found enormous number of sympathisers, who were equally at the receiving end. According to Bangladesh citizens, the last two terms of the Sheikh Hasina government were a mockery of democracy. Even elections would be compromised. As Hasina grew from strength to strength, she politicized institutions. The rank and file of police owed allegiance to the ruling dispensation. Extortion, harrassment and raids by police and people in power became rampant. An atmosphere of fear and repression reigned and people got restless to overthrow the government.

Politicization of institutions has been happening in Mamata government too. Allegations are quite strong that police in Bengal functions at the beck and call of political bosses. The lapses and alleged loopholes on the part of police in handling the rape and murder of the young doctor have yet again revealed a sense of confused or misplaced loyalty.

But above everything else both Hasina and Mamata governments allegedly seem to have twined in accepting corruption as a way of life. In Bangladesh jobs of primary and secondary teachers got sold at premium, Rs 10-12 lakh in the Hasina regime. Even police had to pay up for prized postings and transfers. In Bengal busting of the teacher’s recruitment scam has revealed how unsuccessful and ineligible candidates got government jobs in schools in exchange of bribes.

Similarities are multiple and inescapable. Mamata has good reasons to be apprehensive. It’s not only she, who can see and connect the dots. People, out on the streets, clamoring for justice, can see a providential pattern somewhere in the unfolding of future events in these two places-- Bangladesh and Bengal. True, they share more than 2,217 odd km of border. They share the same umbilical cord, other than language, culture, ethos, icons. Even emotions are the same. So she cannot take any risk.

(The writer is a senior jounalist based in Kolkata. Views personal)

Comments

bottom of page