Kathmandu: I cannot even begin to summarise the first two days of the ‘Gen Z’ upsurge in Nepal without taking refuge in the words of Charles Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”

This was just the second day of the Gen Z movement and it was already difficult to keep track of the monumental changes that had occurred in Nepal's politics in just 24 hours. The unprecedented national mourning over the murder of 19 protesters on the first day swiftly turned into a national uprising on Tuesday as people came out on the streets despite strict curfews and began vandalising everything that came their way.

By the afternoon, it was easier to tell which major government building or which leaders' houses were left out rather than which had been torched.

In what could be symbolic of the dismantling of Nepal's democratic structure, the protesters on Tuesday attacked all three arms of the government – the executive, the judiciary and the legislature – as they torched the Singha Durbar, the Supreme Court and the parliament buildings, apart from the office of the president as well as the private homes of the president the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, among others.

By afternoon, videos emerged of protesters with foreign minister Arzu Rana Deuba and her husband, the former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, both beaten and visibly shaken. Ministers were escorted to safety in Nepal Army helicopters, and leaders across political parties had fled their homes for fear of their lives.

An uprising

Monday's tragedy had by Tuesday afternoon given way to anarchy as the Gen Z movement was joined, even taken over, by citizens of all ages and from all walks of life. Corruption, nepotism and the social media ban, the three concerns of the Gen Z movement, seemed inconsequential in just a day as the slogans now involved “change” – although there was no unanimity in what it is that they really wanted to change.

Unable to face public anger, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned, paving the way for the formation of a new government. But at this point, there are hardly any takers for the prime minister's position, which had for the past two decades remained the hot potato of Nepali politics.

Each of the top leaders of all three major political parties – the Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and the Maoist Centre – has been targeted and rejected on the streets. The leaders of the fourth- and fifth-largest parties – the Rastriya Swatantra Party and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party – have announced their resignations en masse.

This has left a political vacuum that is unprecedented in Nepal's political history. No one can tell whom the enraged people will accept as their leader at this moment.

But there are signs. In what could be taken as the desire of at least one significant section of the population, protesters stormed into the Nakkhu jail on the outskirts of the Kathmandu valley to release Rabi Lamichhane, the embattled parliamentarian of the Rastriya Swatantra Party and former home minister who is undergoing trial in a corruption case.

And all day, a section of the protesters called on Kathmandu Metropolitan City mayor Balen Shah to come forward and take the lead, with major newspapers toeing the line.

But there are obvious constitutional complications in choosing them to lead Nepal as prime minister. While Balen is not even a parliamentarian, Rabi's parliamentary membership has been suspended due to his ongoing case, and at any rate, all members of his parliamentary party have decided to resign en masse.

A political crisis

As the sky over Kathmandu gets clouded with the thick smoke of burnt tyres, the roadmap for tomorrow is still unclear. What seemed undoable in 20 years, the Gen Z protest has done in 24 hours – bringing politicians to their knees, and giving the people the hope that change is inevitable.

No Nepali could have imagined in their wildest dreams the current consequences of their desire for change. As the essential institutions of democracy fall, I cannot tell whether this change will lead Nepal towards positive transformation or further crisis.

As dusk falls on Kathmandu, I am writing these concluding lines from a half-open neighbourhood cafe even as the office of The Kathmandu Post, where I worked as the opinion editor until a few months ago, where I published my piece this morning and where this piece was supposed to appear tomorrow morning, is burning.

Outside the cafe, protesters are heading home in a triumphant mood. Inside, I am joined by a group of a dozen Gen Z protesters who have just returned to have their evening tea and cigarettes in their regular haunt.

One of them is brandishing a baton snatched from a policeman, another a police helmet. They say they tried to storm into the prime minister’s residence but came back after they heard he had already left the valley.

On their way back, they torched the Supreme Court, but left the national archive – because preserving the country’s proud history is important. And they are already planning to run for the next elections – whenever they happen.

And how would they want to remember this day? They tell me they want to remember this day as the day they began to believe in themselves and in their ability to build a new nation free of corruption.

Dinesh Kafle is a Kathmandu-based journalist. Earlier, he worked as a senior sub-editor at The Wire.

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