The 'cockroach' in the machine: How Gen Z is rattling South Asia's elites

A Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) supporter shouts slogans at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Thursday during the ongoing protest to demand the resignation of India's education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images Šumit Ganguly is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a distinguished professor of political science emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. In September 2025, Nepal's government banned 26 popular social media platforms, alleging the companies had failed to comply with new regulations aimed at curbing misinformation and online hate speech. Critics, however, viewed the move as an attempt to suppress viral videos showcasing the lavish lifestyles of politicians and their "nepo kids." Mass protests followed, and within days, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned. Barely a year earlier, in August 2024, a similar student protest movement ousted Bangladesh's longtime ruler, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The protests stemmed from a High Court decision to uphold a quota system reserving 30% of government jobs for descendants of the veterans of the 1971 ind...