Generation Z’s Asian Spring: How a Betrayed Generation Is Rewriting South Asia’s Politics

"Gen Z is being represented by people who don't belong to our generation"

A sentiment that is shared across the borders of South Asia, from Aditya in Nepal to Nahid in Bangladesh, leading to the rise of the Gen Z revolution, or the Asian Spring as many researchers have coined it.

The 2020s have shown a stark rise in discontentment among the youth of South Asia; giving rise to a string of revolutions across the continent, which have overthrown the existing regimes and replaced them with student backed interim governments.

Gen Z first mobilised in Sri Lanka in 2022 after a period of great conflict, marked by surging inflation, shortages of fuel and medicine, systemic corruption, elite capture and long-drawn-out power outages.

The outrage over the country’s conditions led to a mass uprising in Bangladesh in July 2024, spearheaded largely by university students. While it was initially focused on restructuring quota-based reforms for government job recruitment, the persisting corruption and state repression caused it to expand into a large-scale non-cooperation movement. In the aftermath of the July massacre, the student led movement had only one aim: to oust Sheikh Haisina’s government. Anger over the government's mismanagement of the national economy, rampant corruption, human rights violations, allegations of undermining the country's sovereignty, and increasing authoritarianism thus led to the first full-fledged Gen Z revolution in Asia.

A chain of protests followed in 2025, beginning in Indonesia. The anger was over a proposed Rp 50 million (US$3,057) monthly housing allowance for parliament members, ten times Jakarta's minimum wage and one of the highest in Indonesia.

Then came Nepal, following a nationwide ban on numerous social media platforms, and they incorporated the public's frustration with corruption and the display of wealth by government officials and their families, as well as alleged gross mismanagement of public funds.

Timor Leste and the Philippines witnessed similar unrest over systemic corruption, government inefficiencies and gross mismanagement of funds by officials and these movements were further emboldened by the trends being witnessed in their neighbouring countries.

Despite the geographic differences, a common thread ran through them all.

They all saw the younger generations as forces for social change, who took to the streets to reject a failing system.

This can largely be attributed to the following reasons:

• The median age in the Global South is 25 years with nearly 1.5 billion individuals. The existing establishment politics are unable to meet Gen Z’s frustrations. Constitutions are relics from the past, and unaccountable judiciaries live light years away from the current reality. This generation’s main interactions with the state are through tone-deaf bureaucrats and militarised police creating an unbridgeable gap between the people and their representatives.

  
  

• The youth in the region remain frustrated with unemployment even though they are the most educated generation of the region with poverty remaining a major challenge in these countries.

  
  

•  Gen Z are paying for climate change and environmental distress, issues caused by the previous generations through a lower standard of living, rising inflation and poor health.

  
  

•  Young people do not want to have to migrate to have a dignified life. In Nepal, young protestors chanted against the compulsion towards economic migration: We want jobs in Nepal. We don’t want to have to migrate for work. 

  
  

• Lastly, the deeply entrenched partisan politics and corruption among politicians that are their grandparents’ age alienates the new generations from their country’s governance and forces them to look elsewhere for community engagement.

The rise of social media has given these dissatisfied youth a platform to express their outrage and technology has also brokered a sense of solidarity among protesters in different countries enabling them to learn from each other’s mistakes. This was evident in the incorporation of significant aspects of pop culture such as a cartoon skull logo by the youth. It was popularised by Indonesian demonstrators along with the usage of the hashtag #SEAblings in these movements.

With a young demography, and both access and savvy when it comes to the internet, South Asia’s Gen Z has managed to leverage digital platforms effortlessly for community, organisation and self-expression.

However, these protests have all led to serious consequences offline. Buildings have burnt down, homes have been looted and ransacked, and politicians have been dragged from their houses and beaten. The damage to buildings and businesses alone, is worth more than the GDP of several developing countries. And the loss to life and human rights on both sides is too insurmountable to be measured.

These uprisings have not only impacted the political atmosphere of the countries but also the entire Southern economy and diplomacy.

The recent decade has witnessed a large amount of instability in the region. Instability makes investors nervous, causing them to withdraw from the markets, leading to a loss of billions in FDIs and FIIs. This damage to the economy and per capita incomes may take decades to heal and till then will most impact the most vulnerable communities, that is, women, tribals, migrants and rural livelihoods.

It also de-incentivises other countries to enter trade alliances, negotiations and treaties for mutual development and growth. As the credibility of the people in power decreases, foreign governments lose faith in the permanence of these treaties and choose to mitigate the risk of these massive investments in turbulent regions.

With such over-reaching impacts, it is imperative that what follows after these upheavals be carefully planned and set the foundation for secure and independent democracies.

This involves the selection of a stable interim government, drafting a constitution that best serves the needs of a new demography and most importantly, free and fair elections that truly reflect the change in society rather than simply replacing the old system with newer and younger exploitative faces.

Through these uprisings, the youth have shown an admirable ability to imagine a better political and economic future, and see the gap between what they aspire to, and the reality. They reflect the optimism and hope of a generation that was physically isolated from the world for more than 2 years and now lives under the burden of a glaringly bleak future.

The question now is, what follows the fury? And who else needs to be on guard?

BY AYUSHI GARG

THE INDIAN NETIZENS