Nepal’s Gen Z Must Move from ‘Nepo Kid’ to ‘Every Kid Matters’

To Remove the Contrast Between Elite and Ordinary Children, Inequalities Among Ordinary Children Must Be Addressed

By Vishal Arora

September 20, 2025

Nepal’s Gen Z recently led nationwide protests sparked by a ban on social media but driven by anger at corruption, nepotism and authoritarianism. The slogan “Nepo Kid” helped mobilise young people to reject inherited privilege and dynastic politics. Now that the government has been overthrown, the movement cannot remain defined only by what it opposes. It must advance a constructive agenda. One way forward is to move from “Nepo Kid” to “Every Kid Matters,” making inclusion a central demand. It is essential because the contrast between elite children and ordinary children will remain hollow unless the inequalities among ordinary children are addressed first.

Let us begin by recalling what happened earlier this September. More than 70 people were killed and over 1,000 injured after police fired live rounds on protesters. Hospitals filled with wounded teenagers. Parliament buildings were vandalised, and ministers were either assaulted or forced to flee. In the wake of the chaos, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned. Sushila Karki, a former chief justice constitutionally barred from holding executive office, was installed as interim prime minister with the protestors’ support. Elections are now scheduled for March 2026. Gen Z has already altered the political timeline. But that alone will not alter the political order.

“Nepo Kid” became a shorthand for the deep entrenchment of power within a small circle, referring to the children of political elites who enjoy privileges such as education abroad, lucrative jobs and protection from the law, all secured purely by virtue of family connections. On the other hand, ordinary children are left to navigate broken schools, jobless markets and a state that rarely answers to them. Civil service seats secured through backdoor channels. Business deals shielded by family networks. Protestors named the system for what it was.

But anger, however justified, is not a replacement for political design. The same system that protected the elite also reproduced inequality among ordinary people. If the movement does not directly confront Nepal’s history of caste, ethnic and regional exclusion, it will only widen the cracks that already exist. “Every Kid Matters” could be a demand for justice that begins where injustice is deepest.

Nepal’s state institutions remain dominated by the Khas-Arya upper castes, a group that includes Bahuns and Chhetris, who have historically held political, administrative and military power across the country.

According to 2020 data published in the study Representative Bureaucracy: The Nepalese Perspective, over 63 percent of civil service jobs are held by the Khas-Arya group, which comprises just over 30 percent of the population. Dalits, who make up 13.6 percent of the population, hold under 3 percent of those roles.

Madhesis, who live mainly in the southern plains along the border with India, and Janajatis, or indigenous nationalities from Nepal’s hill and mountain regions, although somewhat more visible, remain underrepresented in national decision-making and senior administration.

According to the 2020 data, Madhesis hold about 15 percent of civil service roles, roughly in line with their population share. Janajatis, by contrast, hold about 19 percent of civil service positions despite making up more than a third of the population, showing a sharper imbalance. Further, Madhesi and Janajati presence shrinks sharply at senior levels: very few from these communities reach top police ranks or high administrative positions.

Discriminatory citizenship laws in Nepal make it harder for many Madhesis to apply for full citizenship. Under current rules, children born to a Nepali mother and a foreign father receive naturalised citizenship rather than citizenship by descent, which carries fewer rights and prevents holders from accessing some state-posts and political offices. Women married to non-Nepali citizens must wait many years to acquire citizenship themselves. These laws disproportionately affect Madhesi women and their children because cross-border marriages and mixed parentage are common in the southern plains.

Religious minorities also face exclusion alongside caste and ethnic groups. Muslims, who make up about 5 percent of Nepal’s population, are scarcely represented in senior administration or national politics. Their communities in the Tarai are still struggling with access to citizenship and state services.

Christians, although a smaller minority, often face false charges of conversion and are subject to surveillance or harassment, while Hindu nationalist groups with alleged backing from India have sought to deepen divisions in the country, leaving Christians outside the protections other groups can claim. These exclusions rarely enter mainstream debate, yet they cut directly against the promise that every citizen should stand equal before the state.

Amid these entrenched inequalities, Nepal’s older parties have consistently relied on tokenism.

In the 2022 elections, Dalits were largely confined to proportional lists, with only one winning a direct seat out of 165. During the drafting of the 2015 Constitution, Madhesi and Janajati leaders were included at the table, yet their demands were ignored in the final settlement, sparking deadly protests in the plains. Even cabinet appointments have followed the same pattern: Dalit and Janajati ministers are named for visibility, but usually assigned minor portfolios with no influence over core decisions. The only way to dismantle it is to build power outside it.

“Every Kid Matters” could confront these realities head-on. It could begin by asking: which children are furthest from equal footing, and why? A child born into a Dalit household in Dailekh is not merely economically poor. That child faces barriers in the classroom, the police station, the public hospital and the employment queue. A Janajati child in the eastern hills may never see a trained teacher. A Madhesi teenager without a citizenship certificate cannot legally work, vote or open a bank account.

Much remains to be done to secure equality among ordinary people, from corrective measures and new policies on public education, civil service entry and political representation, to ensuring justice for the protestors who were shot dead, which must stand among the state’s top priorities.

To achieve any of this, the Gen Z movement must resist the temptation to speak only to itself. Social media helped organise the protests, but real reform requires coalitions that go beyond the digital. Voices of Dalit activists, Janajati organisations, Madhesi leaders, Muslims and Christians must be part of the agenda-setting, not invited after it is written. Injustice must be dismantled in its entirety, and not removed in pieces.

“Nepo Kid” was the call that broke the silence. “Every Kid Matters” must become the structure that replaces it.

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