Bhaktpur: Just 15 kilometres from Nepal’s bustling capital Kathmandu, in the quiet lanes of the Thimi area in Bhaktapur, grief lingers. In a small, dimly lit room, two young boys, Renchen and Jimi Rai, aged 12 and 5, tend to a flickering lamp beside a framed photo of their father. They have just come back from school, which reopened after four days.
Wearing their red school uniform, they stare blankly at the horde of people outside the room. The younger one tries to muster together a smile, excited to show his black glasses, while the elder one sits quietly at the corner of the bed.
They do not fully understand why the lamp was lit.
They only know that their father, 42-year-old Sajan Rai, was shot and hasn’t come home since. They are still waiting. They have not seen his body.
Sajan was their only guardian. Their mother passed away 22 months ago. Since then, the daily wage labourer had raised them alone. Now, he too is gone, killed during the youth-led anti-corruption protests in Kathmandu, a movement dubbed the Gen Z uprising.
The two sons now await their father’s return, perhaps for one last time. What was once a quaint, unassuming neighbourhood now bears the heavy weight of a tragedy that unfolded from a movement many still don’t fully understand.
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Nepal Gen Z uprising
Sajan had never heard of Gen Z before. The term was foreign to him. Was it a group? A new political party? An organisation? No one in his community could explain it, yet everyone was talking about it. All he knew came from social media.
Posts flooded TikTok and Facebook calling for a nationwide protest on 8 September. The goal: to demand good governance and an end to corruption.
Sajan didn’t understand politics, but he understood rage. After the first day of demonstrations, he learned that 19 people died and that they were shot by security forces.
Among those in the crowd of protesters that day was his nephew, 35-year-old Bharat Rai, who had travelled to Bhaktpur from his native village to interview for a job in Saudi Arabia.
Bharat had been closely following the so-called “nepo babies” trend. He could relate to it as he was looking for greener pastures abroad, while the elite in Nepal were apparently living lavish lives. Sajan did not know of all this, but the news of 19 protesters being killed angered him. Bharat remembered the anger in his uncle’s voice: “Should we shoot the children of ordinary people? I will also join the movement tomorrow.”
Though he didn’t know who organised the protest, Sajan felt compelled to join. A father of two who’d already lost their mother, he saw the slain protesters as no different from his own children.
“We didn’t know what Gen Z was,” Bharat said. “We didn’t even know who the organisers were. But when they said there would be a movement to make Nepal free from corruption, we joined with enthusiasm.”
From anti-corruption stir to chaos
According to Bharat, in the beginning, the protests were peaceful. He and others marched through the streets, chanting anti-corruption slogans. But as the hours passed, the atmosphere shifted. News travelled that the Parliament building had been vandalised. Police began firing tear gas and live rounds. Some protesters responded by pelting stones and burning tires.
Despite the chaos, Bharat and his group tried to de-escalate the situation. “We kept telling people, ‘Don’t throw stones, don’t break anything. Let’s keep it peaceful’,” he recalled.
But not everyone listened. According to Bharat, unidentified groups infiltrated the protest and began acts of vandalism. “That was never our goal,” Bharat said, his voice heavy with regret. “We wanted to fight corruption, not destroy the city. But the movement was hijacked by unruly elements.”
Realising the protest had spiralled out of control, Bharat and his friends decided to step back. They left the Baneshwor neighbourhood, hoping to avoid further violence. But Sajan remained on the front lines. He had joined another demonstration in Thimi, determined to make his voice heard.
At around 5 p.m., in a small field in Thimi, security forces opened fire. Sajan was shot in the chest.
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Loss and lament
Now, Bharat’s grief runs deeper than the loss of just one family member. Alongside his uncle Sajan Rai, he also lost his brother-in-law, 22-year-old Pravin Kulung, a college student who was fatally shot by police during the protests. Several of his friends were injured as well. Bharat lost family, friends and perhaps his faith in the country’s promises.
Now, he is demanding answers. His plea is simple: declare Sajan as a martyr and offer appropriate compensation to the family. Until that happens, he refuses to collect his uncle’s body from the hospital. “I’ll only pick up my uncle’s body when the government gives us justice, provides proper relief, and declares him a martyr,” he said firmly. “He went out not for personal gain, but for the nation. The state should take responsibility.”
His distrust of the government isn’t new. It’s rooted in past betrayal.
Bharat told a local newspaper that at the age of 16, he had joined the Maoist insurgency during Nepal’s civil war, carrying weapons and fighting under the promise of a new, egalitarian future.
But when the war ended, he was dismissed as a “child soldier” and given just Rs 10,000 to return home. The bullet wounds in his legs and the shrapnel in his back remained, but the promises vanished.
Bharat eventually gave up on the Maoists and politics altogether after the promulgation of the new Constitution in 2015. But the dream of good governance never quite left him. It was this hope that led him to the Gen Z protests, nearly two decades later.
Now, it feels like history is repeating itself. He is still unsure who even led the protest. His own aspirations on pause, his nephews are his only focus. He is caring for Sajan’s two young sons. “I still haven’t figured out who the real leaders are. But I lost my uncle. I lost my brother-in-law. Even if their bodies are lying here, justice must be done. I won’t go abroad. I’ll stay and fight,” he said.
The government has asked the family to collect Sajan’s body. But Bharat is at a loss. They don’t know how to bring the body back or how to show it to the children.
No one, from the government or the Gen Z movement, has reached out.
This, despite Interim Prime Minister Sushila Karki’s public declaration that all those killed during the Gen Z protests would be honored as “martyrs” and that their families would receive Rs 10 lakh in Nepali currency, in compensation.
Bharat finds it hard to trust any of the promises the government has made. When he checked the official list of those declared martyrs, his uncle’s name and others he knew were missing.
There is also growing frustration with Sudan Gurung, a prominent face of the Gen Z protests and the leader of the non-profit organisation Hami Nepal (We are Nepal). They feel he is not doing enough.
“My uncle was struggling financially. With Kathmandu’s high cost of living, even paying rent and raising his two sons was a challenge,” Bharat said. “And with my aunt passing away not long ago, the state has now left those boys completely orphaned. That worries me even more.”
What he and others are asking for is simple: the government should take responsibility to support the orphaned children and help rebuild the lives of those who took to the streets.
“There’s so much pain,” Bharat said. “But we don’t want to carry it forever. All we want is for someone, anyone, from the sea of leaders waving different flags to take responsibility. To come forward. To stand with us. At least offer words of condolence, and help us rebuild what’s left of this family.”
If the government doesn’t act soon, he warns, the consequences will only grow. Bharat says that the people are angry, and if nothing changes, the protests will return. This time it will be bigger and louder.
“There are so many leaders. So many flags,” he said, pausing. “But in the end, who loses? It’s the people who die.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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