India is looking at a rapidly shifting political landscape along its Himalayan frontier, with the dramatic fall of K P Sharma Oli’s government in Nepal and the sudden emergence of youth-driven protests bringing heightened uncertainty for New Delhi’s strategic calculations.

The political earthquake in Kathmandu has profound regional implications, paralleling youth-led movements and the unseating of entrenched leaders in India’s eastern periphery. Yet, for all the fevered speculation of shadowy foreign manipulation circulating among Indian right-wing social media users, the evidence remains circumstantial for a foreign hand at play. Nepal’s Gen-Z-led protests, triggered initially by a sweeping social media ban and spiralling into outrage over elite corruption and economic stagnation, toppled Oli’s administration. Protests and the subsequent police firings left over fifty dead, hundreds wounded, and government buildings torched.

Demonstrators, communicating through niche social media apps such as Discord, operated more like an online forum than a traditional South Asian protest movement. In a striking moment for digital democracy, Nepal’s youth even used online channels to conduct a real-time vote on an interim leader, selecting former chief justice Sushila Karki. The trust deficit with traditional parties in Nepal is bottomless. Since Nepal abolished its monarchy in 2008, no fewer than fourteen governments have cycled through power, often based on fractious coalitions and elite deal-making. This constant political flux has alienated an entire generation. Images of government ‘nepo kids’ flaunting privilege further fuelled public anger, while the police’s heavy-handed response, including live fire, became a rallying cry. Notably absent is clear ideological organisation.

What unites the Gen-Z rebellion is not a party platform but a fierce desire for accountability and an end to entrenchment. For India, Nepal’s turmoil is cause for strategic concern. The countries share an open 1700km border, and unrest in the Terai region which comprises much of Nepal’s southern plains – often sends economic, social and security ripples into northern India.

India’s security and intelligence agencies have issued advisories to its border states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, urging police and border guards to monitor cross-border movement in case instability triggers undocumented migration or militancy. Indian officials, at least publicly, have adopted caution. Delhi has avoided any open endorsement of either the outgoing government or the Gen-Z protesters, wary of being accused of interference in Nepali affairs, a long-standing sore point in Kathmandu.

Yet there is growing unease within India’s security establishment that political collapse in Nepal could embolden anti-India groups, disrupt lucrative cross-border trade, and give China opportunities to expand its influence through relief efforts or development promises. This generational revolt is not unique to Nepal. Patterns echo recent events in Bangladesh, where the youth-led quota movement against perceived government job nepotism exploded into street confrontations.

This ultimately forced Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign in mid 2024 after fifteen years in power. As in Nepal, protesters stormed government buildings, forced an entrenched leader out, and brought a caretaker government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, with promises of sweeping reforms and fair elections. The interim Bangladeshi administration is also navigating sectarian and religion based violence which has led to international pressure on the Yunus administration to quell the abuse against minorities.

Meanwhile, in India’s north-east, Manipur has seen protracted communal violence and deepening alienation from the national mainstream. Here too, new media platforms are central in fomenting and sustaining protest, although the violence is rooted in local ethnic grievances rather than a generational push for anti-corruption or digital participation.

Social media has become not just a vehicle for protest organisation but also for widely divergent narratives and inevitably for conspiracy theories about foreign hidden hands. Across the region and particularly in India, right-wing commentators have speculated loudly about a CIA playbook in Nepal, Bangladesh and India’s Manipur - where widespread violence during 2024 led to major unrest.

Such claims, though titillating for some, are entirely unsubstantiated by credible investigation or official statements. No evidence has yet surfaced linking these uprisings to external intelligence agencies or so-called colour revolution tactics.

Former Nepali and Bangladeshi officials, as well as security analysts in Delhi, broadly dismiss the idea of grand clandestine plots in favour of more plausible explanations such as deep-rooted frustration, the rapid spread of video-driven narratives, and the organisational capabilities offered by encrypted social and gaming chat platforms.

In Nepal, fundamental grievances relate to persistent corruption, unemployment, and a sense of exclusion among youth, not incentives or support from abroad. The result for India is a new strategic headache, adapting to an unpredictable neighbourhood where youth anger, not party machinations, drives political transitions. India’s historic influence in Nepal, exercised through business, open borders and frequent political engagement, may be less effective with Gen-Z networks that see both Indian and Chinese power as equally self-interested and distant.

Delhi is likely to seek stability above all else. Border security will be heightened, and intelligence agencies will closely monitor any sign of spillover instigating migration or unrest. Indian policymakers may need to recognise that the old levers of influence, based on elite-to-elite contacts, must be complemented by new forms of diplomatic engagement with digitally energised, ideologically complex youth movements. The convergence of anti-establishment protest and digital mobilisation signals a new age across South Asia.

Nepal’s Gen-Z have set a precedent. Systemic discontent now overflows in sporadic movements that can unseat long-standing governments. The South Asian political kaleidoscope now also demonstrably turns because of the energy of a digitally empowered, impatient generation who are no longer willing to wait for meaningful accountability.