Learning from Sri Lanka and Bangladesh

On September 8, Kathmandu’s streets echoed with the voices of thousands of youths, protesting against decades of systemic corruption. While many viewed this uproar as a sudden, one-off phenomenon, it was, in fact, hardly an isolated event. In the past three years, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh each have witnessed their own sparks of mass revolution and political unrest in 2022 and 2024 respectively. Although these three nations have had their own unique history, there is a strikingly recurrent pattern that connects them, especially in context of the protests that emerged. Understanding key similarities and differences of the three upheavals while learning how our neighbors navigated the aftermath is pivotal, especially at a time when Nepal stands at a critical juncture – one that is bound to shape its political and economic trajectory for years to come.

A Background of the Three Unrests

To understand the core of these unrests, a brief overview of the three crises and the context of each of the countries is essential. For Sri Lanka, it started back in April of 2019, when six suicide bombings by Islamic extremists hit Catholic churches and luxury hotels in the nation’s capital area. In the previous year, tourism was the third-largest export earner of the Sri Lankan economy but in the two months that followed, tourist arrivals per day dropped to an average of 1,700 compared to the 7,600 figure prior to the attack. This incident, on top of the COVID-19 lockdown imposed by the government during August, wounded an already hit tourism sector. Given this background, around the end of the same year, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa introduced deep tax cuts with the most prominent one being the Value Added Tax (VAT) being decreased from 15% to 8%. The combination of these tax cuts, the pandemic’s impact on revenues, and the cost of COVID-19 relief measures widened fiscal deficits to 12.8% of GDP in 2020. In April of 2021, the President banned chemical fertilizers overnight, aiming to make agriculture 100% organic which was a strategy to preserve the foreign reserves by avoiding fertilizer imports during an economic crisis. But this move proved to be counter-productive for the economy as overall food production dropped by more than 40%, rice harvests dropped by 32%, tea production fell by 18%. This sparked widespread food insecurity and economic losses, including an estimated USD 25 million in lost tea exports alone. By the time the government defaulted on its debt in April 2022, foreign reserves had dropped to USD 1.9 billion, amounting to about one month of imports (3 months of imports are broadly considered appropriate for countries with flexible exchange rates).  In 2022, Sri Lanka was the first Indo-Pacific country in decades to default on its external debt. Debt-to-GDP was at a whopping 114%, far above recommended levels for a lower-middle-income country. Inflation levels reached a record high of 73.7% in September that year. Owing to the lack of foreign reserves, the island faced acute food, medicine and fuel shortage which eventually triggered the anti-government protests. This was known as the “Aragalaya” movement, derived from the Sinhala word for “struggle”, and towards the end of these protests, protestors ended up storming the President’s official residence in Colombo and the President resigned.

In the case of Bangladesh, the economy saw stellar export-led growth driven by its Readymade Garment Industry (RMG), with the nation being the second largest exporter of garments after China in 2024. In 2019, Bangladesh had an average growth rate of 8%, which was well above the Asian average and in the year 2022, the country reported a growth of 7.2%, establishing it one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, the wealth disparity widened since as of June 2024, 41% of Bangladesh’s total income was in the hands of the wealthiest 10% of the population depicting a vast income inequality. On the political front, the Awami League party had been in power since 2009 but they made unpopular decisions like dismissing the caretaker government and even were accused of mass vote riggings in the 2014, 2018 and 2024 elections. While in power, this party carried out arrests of their opposition leaders and the media was strictly regulated through draconian laws such as the Digital Security Act, 2018, stifling people’s freedom of expression. Then, in July 2024, the High Court reinstated the job quota system which guaranteed one third of civil service posts to the children of freedom fighters of the Bangladesh Liberation movement in 1971. Along with that, there were suspicions that this quota benefitted groups that backed the ruling Awami League party and that they were highly misused. With unemployment rates soaring in the nation, the protestors asked for a merit-based quota system through the anti-quota protests, starting from Dhaka. But these peaceful protests escalated into violence as members of the Bangladesh Chatra League (BCL) (affiliated with the Awami League) attacked student protestors. In the days of the protest that followed, police charged with batons, tear gas and even open fire which left over 300 people dead in the unrest. The then Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina also closed schools and universities, imposed a curfew, cut off internet access in parts of Bangladesh, and called those protesting against her as ‘terrorists’. While this controversial quota system was cut sharply on July 21, protests continued as people demanded justice for those killed in the clashes and called for the resignation of Hasina. In August, the protests against the government continued and after thousands of protestors stormed the Prime Minister’s residence, Hasina ultimately resigned and fled to India.

Nepal, on the other hand, has seen decades of accumulated structural weaknesses. Remittances contributed to 23.5% of the nation’s growth in the last fiscal year driving the surplus Balance of Payments (BoP) figure. The country suffers from a weak productive sector with imports exceeding exports by almost 6.6 times in the past year. The country lacks a favorable environment for businesses due to poor implementation of government policy, bureaucratic burden, and continued political instability.  Nepal’s overall rank in ‘Doing Business’ in 2020 was 94^th out of 190 economies as per World Bank which has hindered the productive sector growth. Owing to the lack of opportunities in the country, last fiscal year 856,422 left the nation seeking foreign employment abroad. On top of these economic issues, the country has seen fragile political stability. From 2008 till the present, no administration completed a full term as 14 governments were formed under eight different Prime Ministers. After the new constitution was promulgated in 2015, the Prime Minister’s post in Nepal rotated between the trio of KP Sharma Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, and Sher Bahadur Deuba, all of whom faced allegations of corruption and nepotism. In the month of September in 2025, a viral trend on social media with the hashtags of ‘NepoBaby’ and ‘NepoKids’ attracted widespread attention on the extreme amount of wealth that the Nepali politicians had accumulated through years of corruption benefiting their offsprings while the majority of the public suffered economically. This trend was inspired by the same viral trends in Indonesia and Philippines. Overall, the public trust in leaders and political institutions has eroded, mainly among the younger section of the Nepali society. The people’s frustrations reached a boiling point when the government responded by suspending 26 social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,  X and others citing non compliance with the new registration rules under the Social Media Management Directive 2080 (2023 A.D.). The culmination of these events then led to young students and protestors began protesting at Maitighar Mandala, a major roundabout in the valley on September 8, 2025. As the peaceful demonstrations moved toward the Federal Parliament building in the capital, the police enforced crowd control measures like tear gas and water cannons which escalated to rubber bullets, and live ammunition, killing at least 19 people and injuring hundreds of youths. The next day, the then Prime Minister KP Oli resigned and the army was deployed to restore order. Three days later, after being nominated on a Discord discussion organized by ‘Hami Nepal’, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed as the Interim Prime Minister of the nation, becoming the first female executive head and the House of Representatives was dissolved by the President.

Divergent Roots

While the uproar in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh emerged out of similar grievances of the protestors, the underlying economic intricacies differ. Understanding these core differences is vital for Nepal to avoid making the same mistakes as its crisis ridden neighboring countries.

Sri Lanka’s crisis stemmed mostly from the series of wrong decisions made in regards to the economy due to lack of far sighted policy making such as the huge tax cuts and the overnight ban on chemical fertilizers that hit the agriculture sectors. These choices led the country into being unable to pay its debts or import essential goods due to the lack of foreign reserves, causing a total economic breakdown. Bangladesh, on the contrary, has a relatively booming economy and the issues were primarily political with an authoritarian government, shrinking freedom of expression, lack of democratic space and fair practices. While the economy was stable, the people’s trust in the system was severely shattered. In contrast to Sri Lanka, Nepal’s issue was not related to mounting debts, but it was mainly the rising unemployment and lack of a productive economy that was amplified by the nation’s weak governance practices and systemic issues of corruption.

The Commonalities

Any protest, especially in today’s interconnected world, does not exist in a silo. The waves of protests seen in South Asia in the past couple of years have been fueled by the frustrations of the people, shared across borders. A defining feature of the upheavals in all three nations has been the demographic of the ones raising their voices. In Sri Lanka, the movement was driven by students and young professionals pressing for a change in the island nation’s political system. Similarly, in Bangladesh, students and young workers were at the forefront of the anti-quota movement, calling for justice and political reforms. In Nepal, the Gen-Z youths led the protests fighting against corruption and nepotism. In all these movements, this digitally savvy, aspirational, young generation spoke out after witnessing a widening gap between their expectations and reality. This represents a massive “youth bulge” in the region which, unfortunately, is failing to translate into a demographic dividend due to the lack of employment. This is stark since in the year preceding the unrest the youth unemployment rate were 25.4% in 2021, 15.7% in 2023, and 20.5% in 2024 for Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal respectively.

Besides the youth component, a common factor between protests in all three countries was the role of social media and the Internet in the organization of the movements. The Sri Lankan “Aragalaya” movement organically started with protestors being mobilized via social media despite there being no specific leader. Social media helped raise voices against injustices, share news and events as they unfolded, gather support and organize protests. Likewise, the Bangladeshi protestors also leveraged social media for activism in the 2024 protests to organize resistance campaigns, shape public opinion, share their story with the global community and sustain public engagement beyond the physical protest via platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. In the same manner, the September protests in Nepal started through the viral campaign that shed light on nepotism. Protestors were mobilized through the help of social media platforms like Discord and Tiktok, and even the interim Prime Minister was chosen via a Discord channel. These instances in the region underscored the significance of digital expression in politics. Tightening of control over the digital space like the banning of internet services which began on July 17, 2024 in Bangladesh and the social media ban in Nepal imposed from September 4, 2025, only fueled the frustrations of the people in these countries and snowballed into the protests which ended up toppling both the nations’ governments.

Overall, a similar theme seems to be persistent in these crises which is the initial dismissal of citizens’ concerns by the leadership. In each of the cases, leaders dismissed the protestors’ concerns instead of actually addressing the core issues. This governance gap turned peaceful frustration into widespread anger and violence.

The Aftermath

While the responses to all three crises have been different from their causes, all of them have left a profound impact on the citizens. In Sri Lanka, the President fled the nation and resigned while the new government received a bailout of USD 2.9 billion from IMF and consequently implemented harsh austerity measures under the IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) program that pushed many into poverty with the poverty rate shooting up by 13.2% in 2024 (reaching 24.5% from 11.3% in 2019) as government spending was cut, subsidies on electricity and fuel were removed and taxes were increased.

In Bangladesh, the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and fled to India. Consequently, an interim government was formed under Mohammad Yunus. However, the country has been operating under intense scrutiny with the new government making controversial decisions including the release of leaders who were imprisoned for corruption. On November 17, 2025, Hasina was found guilty of crimes against humanity by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh and as a result, was handed a death sentence over the brutal crackdown by her security forces on the student protestors.

As for Nepal, a total of 76 lives were lost during the protests, the country suffered massive infrastructure loss of approximately USD 580 million, and the World Bank revised the predictions for Nepal’s growth in the fiscal year 2026 to 2.1%, down from 5.4% before the September protests. Despite this, while an interim government was formed with Gen-Zs choosing their interim Prime Minister Sushila Karki via Discord and the March 5, 2026 elections are underway, there is still no sign of a comprehensive, credible recovery plan for the economy, leaving the nation in a vulnerable and uncertain state.

Table 1. Summary of the Protests in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal

The Road Ahead

Nepal is at a critical point in history and its path forward ought to be dictated by the hard learned lessons learnt from the economic collapse of Sri Lanka and the political brittleness of Bangladesh. The most important lesson from Sri Lanka is the heavy cost of delayed action. The Rajapaksa government ignored the repeated warnings about the collapsing foreign reserves and refused to enter negotiations with IMF for financial rescue or debt restructuring before it was too late. Nepal must realize the importance of early action and formulating immediate, credible economic recovery plans with strong and competent expertise backing those strategies. Future nation leaders must be questioned about their plans for the country by the people in contrast to Sri Lanka’s case where neither the President provided a thought out plan of how the nation could sustain the deep tax cuts nor the citizens ever interrogated him about it. Waiting for a full-blown crisis is not an option in a nation already hit by the recent unrest.

On the other hand, from Bangladesh’s unrest, Nepal must realize that economic stability is meaningless without political legitimacy. If the people of the country itself do not feel heard or represented or fairly treated, then a growing economy is a not enough. Suppressing public dissent only leads to bigger problems. This was apparent in Hasina’s violent response towards the opposition and protestors which only ended up escalating the movement, bringing an end to her government. Engaging in genuine public dialogue and protecting democratic space are pre-requisites for rebuilding public trust in a state.

Overall, these crises in the South Asian region show the significance of prioritizing accountability in governance as well as fixing the fundamentals of a nation and its economy. The September protests were a final warning bell for Nepal to learn from the fate of its South Asian neighbors. The lesson is crystal clear: the cost of inaction and governance failure can be catastrophic whereas proactive, accountable leadership is the only light that can guide a country through dark and challenging times. Nepal now faces a monumental choice to either learn from these brutal regional lessons or prepare to repeat the most painful chapters in history. The cost of failure is a price the landlocked nation can simply no longer afford to pay.