Digital sovereignty has become one of those phrases that sounds powerful precisely because it is vague. It is invoked in policy documents, conferences, political speeches as if it was a destination waiting to be reached, something a country can simply decide to have.&nbsp;
For Nepal, however, digital sovereignty is less a goal than a tension we must learn to live with. It is the ability of a nation to control its present and future in the digital space. This includes the hardware we rely on, the software we use, and the data we generate, together forming what is called the digital public infrastructure.&nbsp;
But the uncomfortable question emerges: how much control is actually possible for a landlocked &nbsp;country squeezed between two giants, embedded in global supply chain and dependent on external connectivity?
Nepal’s digital dependency is not accidental: it is geographical, structural and is a choice just like any other between India and China. Until 2018, the country’s entire internet flowed through India. The addition of fibre links to China freed us from this monopoly, but it did not give us independence.&nbsp;
Building infrastructure across the Himalaya will never be as efficient as routing cables south. Digital sovereignty, argues Sixit Bhatta of Tootle and Vriddhi, is a political speech rather than a conversation. Modern digital systems are deeply interlinked, with data constantly moving &nbsp;across borders, he adds.
Hardware is manufactured in one country, software developed in another, and data stored somewhere else entirely. Expecting all three to align neatly within national borders is not how the internet works. It is impossible for us to use technology without Chinese hardware and US software.&nbsp;
“It is our current reality that all our data is currently somewhere in the Silicon Valley,” Bhatta told me. “Trying to have all this data within our own territory is an unimaginable feat, but even though sovereignty is not possible, there is data that is unique to Nepal that we can digitise to our advantage, with out own technologies.”
While we may not control where our servers are manufactured or where global platforms store metadata, we can still decide how our public systems are designed, governed, and integrated.
The government’s digital push over the past decade reflects this partial control. Systems like National ID and platforms such as the Nagarik App show slow, flawed progress in digitising service delivery. Citizens can access documents, register complaints, and interact with the state without standing in line.
NOT SMART
But digitisation is not the same as intelligence. As Niraj Bhusal from the Ministry of Finance points out, Nepal’s digital systems are “smart but dumb”. They exist online, but they often do not talk to each other. The fact that an expired passport can still be used to generate a police report is not a minor glitch, it is a reminder that automation without integration merely digitises inefficiency.
Ownership of data is where sovereignty is most often claimed, and most easily misunderstood. Bhusal says data generated through National ID, passports, and Lok Sewa remain fully owned by the state, even when systems are funded by external agencies like the World Bank or ADB or outsourced to foreign private companies.
Yet global examples suggest that ownership is not always the same as control. In several African countries, outsourced digital ID systems have locked governments into opaque contracts with foreign vendors, or have plunged states in surveillance instead of the promised democratic delivery.&nbsp;
In Mali, a dispute with the French company IDEMIA over payments led to election delays when access to biometric voter data was withheld. Data, in that moment, became leverage.
The same company, notably, was also involved in Nepal’s e-passport and National ID systems, but we recently ended the 16 year ties with the company in mid 2025. Outsourcing is not inherently harmful, but long-term dependence without domestic capacity-building creates quiet vulnerabilities and cycles of dependencies.&nbsp;
Bhusal also highlights that limitations of our systems through lack of education and political instability that leads even notable digitisation efforts not being owned by successive governments, as the credit goes to predecessors.&nbsp;
India’s Aadhaar system is often cited as a counterexample. Built on open-source technologies and managed domestically, it ensured that biometric data remained under state control. But Aadhaar also illustrates the other side of sovereignty: when the state controls vast amounts of citizen data, questions of surveillance, exclusion, and misuse inevitably follow. Sovereignty does not automatically translate into protection.
Nepal now stands somewhere in between. The draft Information Technology and Cyber Security Bill proposes data localisation requirements for sensitive sectors like finance and health. If enacted, it would formalise what officials already claim, that critical data stays within Nepal’s jurisdiction.
Ayusha Chalise is a communication and development scholar specialising in how politics is experienced in the digital space.

Ayusha Chalise

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Nepal’s digital dependency

The <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DQtSOT6ilFC/?img_index=1">post on Instagram </a>has an image of Sudan Gurung. Over the top is the message: ‘We wont let this year’s election happen if Gen Z’s demands are Ignored’. The account’s bio is ‘Uniting Nepalese Through Independent Investigative Research.’ Post like these have become a template for the information ecosystem in the aftermath of the GenZ revolt in September. Social media feeds are saturated with content that uses multimodality of captions, video, audio, to convey alarm and warnings about how GenZ aspirations are being subverted. Research by MIT showed that on X false news reaches 1,500 people six times faster than the truth. Fake news goes ‘farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth’, researchers concluded. Narratives compete on platforms, and users gravitate to the shock-value of the news and not to factual precision or nuance.&nbsp; “On social media misinformation easily mutates into disinformation,” says media literacy trainer Deepak Adhikari. “The news we see on social media are often out of context, with little information that misinforms more than inform.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251203121236_6daaeaf8ed255fda4a431d0419d9ae1a0908259af14529835034ce48653064a9.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20251203121236_6daaeaf8ed255fda4a431d0419d9ae1a0908259af14529835034ce48653064a9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1501" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Doomscrolling democracy NT"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251203121232_8a7a41b8bd1892137d1dd97fd1c1408d2879ff96fa69a4d6d5acff7239869d4b.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251203121232_8a7a41b8bd1892137d1dd97fd1c1408d2879ff96fa69a4d6d5acff7239869d4b" data-rendition-name="original" width="1601" height="340" loading="lazy" alt="GenZ instagram"> </figure>  Indeed, today’s ‘Post-Truth Society’ is characterised by a media environment where users give more credibility to their pre-existing beliefs and emotion rather than objective facts or subjective nuance. Post-Truth does not refer to what comes after the truth, but rather a cultural or information environment where pre-held personal beliefs shape public opinion, not facts.&nbsp; Rumour, bias and propaganda have always been a part of the informationsphere, but what makes it different today is the velocity at which falsehood spreads. The news cycle is short, and before content can be verified the damage is already done.&nbsp; Adhikari says that pre- and post-publication fact checking can be a potential antidote. However, when a video with misleading content goes viral, and even after fact-checkers catch up to correct it, the fear-mongering, anger or hate has already spread.&nbsp; In Nepal’s social media, apparently everyone is tarred as guilty, or funded by a foreign government. Calls to dismantle federalism, restore the monarchy, or teach political leaders a lesson by supporting authoritarian alternatives are no longer fringe ideas discussed in private. They circulate routinely in the algorithmic streams legitimised not by evidence but sentiment. When misinformation becomes the default, nostalgia for a mythical prosperous past begins to look like a rational response. While these positions are not new, their algorithmic amplification gives them perceived legitimacy that makes it hard to estimate, or far exceed, their actual political support. “We have not highlighted the achievements of our multiparty democratic system, and the new generation has not experienced authoritarianism,” Adhikari explains. “Therefore statements like federalism is expensive and the monarchy was better have taken up space, because the evidence of the counter narrative is underreported.” There is a positive side to social media. The GenZ movement took on momentum, and the protestors organised and supported each other through the very platforms that are now full of content that can potentially derail the democracy they wanted to strengthen. Just like it was trendy to be revolutionary during the protests, it is now trendy to be skeptical and to distrust the very people who were installed in the interim government through online voting. Such is the architecture of social media: it rewards immediate reaction over reflection, and due to its interface design, it not only shows what could be relevant ‘for you’ but also tells you what others are thinking about that. The role of the mainstream press as the traditional gatekeeper of information has been superseded by the digital sphere — both in access and sharing. This poses new challenges because social media content may not be news, and just because a page claims to be a news site that does not mean it is journalism. Social media feeds are not chronological newspapers but an algorithmic marketplace. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube all rely on recommender systems, now powered by AI to keep users on their platforms for as long as possible. The feeds then collapse the distinction between credible news, speculation, parody, and deliberate disinformation, especially in a politically volatile environment.&nbsp; Everything appears in the same vertical stream, formatted with similar fonts, voiceovers, and music, making a platter of content that they know you are most likely to consume. For Nepali users, this has created personalised and parallel political realities. Two people living in the same household may open TikTok and encounter completely different idea of the problems and solutions of Nepal. One is fed content in favour of elections in March, while another pushes conspiracy theories about anti-GenZ activities aided and abetted by foreign powers. None of these feeds reflect the whole picture. Each reflects what the algorithm has learnt will capture user attention. Academics have long found that social media sites do thousands of A B testing to silently optimise which colors, captions, or video formats users respond to most intensely.&nbsp; Tests help design the most addictive feeds. Interface interference allows platforms to limit discoverability of certain features such as the ‘Logout’ and ‘Privacy’ settings so the system remembers users preference for the next time they are scrolling the platform. When faced with such infocalypse, we have the option to withdraw and not engage with our feeds or our phones. But billions of dollars have been spent by Big Tech to keep us hooked. We need more structural revisions that integrate the need of a safer online environment. Media and digital literacy must be woven into both formal education and public institutions. It cannot be an optional topic or a workshop for a select few.&nbsp; Students must learn how algorithms work, how misinformation spreads, and how to verify information before sharing it. Adults need community-level programs that help them navigate the online world that now shapes politics.&nbsp; Content creators also must be held accountable. Profiles posing as news sites must also be brought under the same scrutiny as the mainstream press. Directives for social media journalism, a section in the Press Council’s Journalism Code of Conduct can be introduced as provisions that foster transparency and ethical journalism practices on social media. Creators should pledge to verify facts, cite sources, and clearly label opinion or commentary. While this will not entirely curb disinformation, it can be the first step towards a digital public sphere that can host democratic dialogue with nuance and facts.&nbsp; Says Adhikari: “Journalism doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and our knowledge space, academia, think tanks, research centres, archives, are scaffolding to support journalism, and we must make them stronger. The role of journalism can be to humanise the news and journalists can be storytellers, but the responsibility of the information ecosystem does not rely on journalists alone.” Ayusha Chalise is a communication and development scholar specialising in how politics is experienced in the digital space.

Doomscrolling democracy

&nbsp;Nepal has finally become famous the world over for something else besides Mt Everest — the GenZ Movement. The 8 September protests in Kathmandu may have been triggered by what happened in Jakarta a week previously, but it inspired street uprisings all over the world. This week, Mexico’s GenZ are clashing with riot police. Last month, the president of Madagascar fled to Dubai. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-genzs-inspired-filipinos" target="_blank">Philippines</a>, Morocco, Peru, Timor Leste all have seen similar anti-government protests against corruption, nepotism and poor governance. A Himalayan republic, a Latin American federation, a Southeast Asian archipelago, or a North African kingdom may have little in common, their histories, religions, languages, and political systems are worlds apart. But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/world/gen-z-revolutions-protests-louvre-heist-gaza.html" target="_blank">the common thread</a> running through these demonstrations were the simulacra and symbols spread on social media platforms.&nbsp; The young crowds marching through the streets of these countries were holding up the same icons. They painted the same images on cardboard, waved the same flags, stitched the same badges on their backpacks. They chanted &nbsp;the same references from the same corners of the internet.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_2ff7cf4ce7a9590359ed18753f4977648a6db83e95dd62d602a3f81e9eec42c4.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20251122031128_2ff7cf4ce7a9590359ed18753f4977648a6db83e95dd62d602a3f81e9eec42c4" data-rendition-name="original" width="1250" height="1047" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> <figcaption> One Piece reference meme on Instagram, 115K likes(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  To anyone who did not grow up online, this looks random. To anyone who did, it feels like the most obvious thing in the world. A new kind of global identity has formed — one that cuts across nationalities and cultures. In Nepal older relatives mock the ‘जेन्जी’. My neighbour asked me if ‘GenZ’ was a new political party.&nbsp; Around the world, when youth-led protests appear, reporters and politicians ask the same question: ‘Who is the leader?’ The answer is the same: there is no leader.&nbsp; Some names come up more prominently, as people did during <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-historic-youth-dissensus?fbclid=IwY2xjawNPQnZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHk5Nazeqz3K9aNddXa-dQfCbwtId0nLclQwHzIYhTfg8tzGWXZMBJ5pjm5Qx_aem_a5JoyT1FRqzCVtnnPM7zUw" target="_blank">the Nepali protests</a>: Sudan Gurung. Miraj Dhungana, Rakshya Bam and other organisers who appeared in livestreams and interviews. But look closely and the leader is hiding in plain sight. The leader is not a person. The leader is the internet meme.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_b2319eb8d7abec7ed5e12baf1a53e0a27cfd7a49ee15c058c47cdf2603a7fa8a.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20251122031128_b2319eb8d7abec7ed5e12baf1a53e0a27cfd7a49ee15c058c47cdf2603a7fa8a" data-rendition-name="original" width="662" height="1038" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> <figcaption>Aurafarming, 233K likes(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-meme-revolution" target="_blank">Memes today</a> are doing the quiet organising work that pamphlets and party cells once did. They offer identity, coordinate action, level power differences, and they do it without any central command. This is not because memes cause revolts. It is because memes are the connective tissue of a generation that grew up on the same visual language, the same jokes, the same references, and the same sense of shared digital childhood. Older generations did not share cultural symbols in the same way. Whether they read a certain comic book or watched the same cartoon depended on class, religion, caste, the country, or neighbourhood they grew up in. These divisions created stratified cultural memories.&nbsp; Today, an entire global cohort has been raised on the same visual media. The same YouTube creators. The same TikTok jokes. The same anime storylines. It is truly what McLuhan predicted the Global Village would be.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_136d009a48d8f8daee82ada1b220e0b0c8ec482b52dcd44e0942e2185a70421b.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20251122031128_136d009a48d8f8daee82ada1b220e0b0c8ec482b52dcd44e0942e2185a70421b" data-rendition-name="original" width="738" height="1012" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> <figcaption>Masked K P Oli, 63K likes(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  This has also created the perfect environment for <a href="https://observer.co.uk/news/international/article/revolution-20-frances-political-future-could-be-won-or-lost-by-bots-and-memes" target="_blank">memes to become political tools</a>. They are instantly recognisable, emotionally charged, and open for remixing. They allow young people to signal their values without stating them. They compress identity, anger, humour, and belonging into something that the rest of the world dismisses as unserious. The perfect example of a GenZ meme is the famous skull and crossbones in protest flags from Kathmandu to Manila to Mexico City. The Strawhat Pirates from the <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20251006-one-piece-manga-revolt-morocco-indonesia-nepal-madagascar" target="_blank">anime One Piece</a>, is a show with over 1,000 episodes and a global fanbase that spans continents. One Piece follows Luffy, a justice driven pirate who travels across a world ruled by corrupt older elites who hoard power and suppress dissent.&nbsp; It is not hard to see why that story resonates with young people who feel locked out of political systems built by generations before them. I even printed stacks of my own flyer that explained memetic warfare using Minecraft visuals and handed them out in the crowd. Each one linked to a Telegram group with the Strawhat Pirates logo called MemePack HQ.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031144_1b12e920be6e312e1dc8768d318c1d1332e32694293b48984089867e7e525a27.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20251122031144_1b12e920be6e312e1dc8768d318c1d1332e32694293b48984089867e7e525a27" data-rendition-name="original" width="1100" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Meme Movements"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_08b720667a9ff36537e58992c8a8030b090900847de5eecd479bbb3fc727349d.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20251122031128_08b720667a9ff36537e58992c8a8030b090900847de5eecd479bbb3fc727349d" data-rendition-name="original" width="696" height="1004" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> <figcaption>Indonesia-Nepal comparison, 17.7K likes(Photo: Shristi Karki)</figcaption> </figure>  CULTURE EXPOSURE The Strawhat logo is not the only symbol making people protest. That would be like saying video games cause real world violence. Instead, the logo works like a modern version of mythology. It packs meaning for those who understand it. It represents loyalty, rebellion, chosen family, and resistance against unfair structures. It works as a rallying flag because it is already a shared story. And unlike older myths, it is accessible regardless of religion, caste, language, or national identity. Across Nepal, the Strawhat symbol has shown up on posters, badges, and protest outfits. But it is only one piece of a larger ecosystem of youth symbols. From Nepali meme pages remixing political speeches into ironic audios, to posts that place politicians into familiar pop culture formats, to clips that exaggerate the absurdity of daily life under slow moving governance, these are not just jokes. These are narrative units. Each post is a tiny story with its own punchline and its own political edge. Each TikTok video or meme functions like a religious shlok, a short piece of narrative that carries layers of meaning depending on who consumes it. Someone who has spent years studying a religion, in this case, inside GenZ online culture will recognise the symbols instantly. Someone outside this world will only see noise. This creates a literacy divide that is not about formal education but cultural exposure.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_2d09f075663678fe92d4e4dcc631ee6ad1aa8a99996f4c4a3649e4bf4d85132f.png" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20251122031128_2d09f075663678fe92d4e4dcc631ee6ad1aa8a99996f4c4a3649e4bf4d85132f" data-rendition-name="original" width="810" height="1208" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_d591c4dc857864cc833ffc6baece3f4c2798bbaf70b557f965463fc8f802900e.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20251122031128_d591c4dc857864cc833ffc6baece3f4c2798bbaf70b557f965463fc8f802900e" data-rendition-name="original" width="568" height="1124" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> </figure>  Protesting youth spent countless hours scrolling, interpreting, remixing, and responding to content. They built a shared symbolic universe across borders without planning to. This is why their political movements feel leaderless. They are not following individuals. They are following stories that define what justice looks like. Stories that define who the villain is. Stories that define how to respond when power is abused. In Nepal, memes about broken roads, delayed passports, political inheritance networks, and bureaucratic absurdity circulated for months before they became slogans or chants. By the time people took to the streets, the narrative groundwork had already been completed by thousands of posts liked and shared in private. The protests did not emerge from nowhere. They emerge from years of digital storytelling. Which is why the government’s ban on 26 digital platforms on 5 September became such a rallying force. The platforms that distribute these memes are not neutral, they are actually designed to maximise engagement because engagement translates to ad revenue. Right now, there is an engineer in Silicon Valley getting paid an enormous salary to find the perfect colour shade for a singular pixel on your screen so that you linger for fractions of a second longer.&nbsp; Algorithms reward content that trigger emotion. Sometimes the emotion is delight. Sometimes it is envy. Often it is anger. When rage becomes a business model, movements built inside these systems can feel powerful but unstable. The platforms democratise attention but centralise emotion. They allow anyone to broadcast, yet they shape the emotional tone of what becomes viral.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20251122031128_f22baab05910305ea435045824b25b796d5630715e2e17c3f3c0991e8371843c.png" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20251122031128_f22baab05910305ea435045824b25b796d5630715e2e17c3f3c0991e8371843c" data-rendition-name="original" width="974" height="1156" loading="lazy" alt="Meme movements"> </figure>  GenZ sits inside this tension. Empowered by the ability to speak without gatekeepers. Trapped inside systems that monetise their attention and amplify their frustration. This is why these leaderless online movements feel both organic and volatile. The algorithm filters which stories rise and which fade. It becomes an unintentional political actor. Not elected. Not accountable. Yet influencing millions. When the state is no longer the primary distributor of information, and when the algorithm becomes the new filter of reality, the public is left with a new responsibility. We have to learn to read memes the way past generations learned to read pamphlets or manifestos. A 15 second video can carry more political weight than a two hour speech. A symbol on cardboard might represent a decade of digital storytelling. Older generations often dismiss these images as childish. They are actually literacy markers of a new political class, one that does not wait for leaders. A political class fluent in remixing power, raised on global stories that feel more honest than the institutions they inherited. The youth did not create these platforms. They inherited them. But through memes they found a new language, one that lets them organise without permission. One that lets them build solidarity without needing meetings or manifestos. One that allows them to resist systems that feel too old to reform. It is time to take that seriously. Nobel Rimal is a researcher of digital culture and political communication who studied and participated in the meme driven mobilisations during the Nepal protests&nbsp;

Meme movements

In 2025, we stand at a crossroads in <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/surveying-nepal-s-digital-landscape">the digital era</a>. Our platforms have become the new public squares, but rather than fostering democracy and dignity, many are optimised for manipulation, division, and profit. The Council on Technology and Social Cohesion's <a href="https://toda.org/assets/files/research/blueprint-on-prosocial-tech-design-governance.pdf">Blueprint on Prosocial Tech Design Governance</a> offers a systems-level response to this crisis. Digital harms are not accidental. They stem from deliberate choices embedded in how platforms are built and monetised. Infinite scroll, addictive recommendation systems, and deceptive patterns are not technical inevitabilities—they are design policies that reward engagement over truth, attention over well-being, and outrage over dialogue.&nbsp; These <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/banner/avoiding-the-quicksand-of-social-media">antisocial designs</a> have proven devastating: eroding mental health, fuelling polarisation, spreading disinformation, and concentrating power in a handful of corporate actors. Tech companies blame users for<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ghiblification-is-more-than-cute-pixels"> harmful content online</a>, avoiding their own responsibility in how they design platforms. The Blueprint shifts the focus from downstream content moderation to upstream focus on platform design. No technology has a neutral design. Companies chose what their platform will allow you to do, prevent you from doing, and what the design will persuade, incentivise, amplify, highlight, or manipulate people to do or not do online. Like building codes in architecture, the report proposes a tiered certification system for prosocial tech, outlining five levels of increasing ambition—from minimum safety standards to fully participatory, socially cohesive platforms. This is not window-dressing. It is a structural intervention to address the root causes of harmful tech designs. Read also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/tech-and-transition-in-nepal">Tech and transition in Nepal</a>, Ashutosh Mani Dixit Tier 1 begins with establishing baseline protections: Safety by Design, Privacy by Design, and User Agency by Design. These are not abstract ideals but concrete practices that give users control over what they see, how they are tracked, and whether manipulative features are opt-in rather than default. Tier 2 scales up with low-barrier user experience tools like empathy-oriented reaction buttons, friction to slow down impulsive posting, and prompts to reflect before sharing. In Tier 3, prosocial algorithms that highlight areas of common ground and diverse ideas replace engagement-maximising recommender systems that offer news feeds skewed toward polarising topics. Tier 4 introduces civic tech and deliberative platforms explicitly built for democratic engagement, and Tier 5 pushes for middleware solutions that restore data sovereignty and interoperability. The report highlights the need for research to understand how platform design impacts society and open data standards for measuring social trust and cohesion. It calls for mandated platform audits, researcher safe harbours, and public infrastructure to enable independent scrutiny of algorithmic systems and user experiences. Without these safeguards, crucial insight into systemic harms—such as <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/comment/inoculation-against-misinformation">manipulation, bias, and disinformation</a>—remains inaccessible. The paper offers a set of prosocial metrics on three areas of social cohesion. This includes individual agency and well-being, or the ability of users to make informed choices and participate meaningfully, social trust and intergroup pluralism referring to the quality of interaction across diverse social, cultural, and political groups, and public trust or the strength of relationship between users and public institutions. Meanwhile, market forces drive antisocial and deceptive tech design. Venture capital (VC) funding is the main source of financing for many major <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/improving-internet-governance-in-nepal?fbclid=IwAR1_tBjAAj53rRCQrGx_vI2P4hts45NzXMo_702l3DmbVLzqCRUhBk68NJk_aem_ASUp6z3b9O_dvca3JUWg_kmf-Si29rn0_X_piNB9GqRu6q28Sjr3GOwfppZg8y2qeQw">tech platforms</a>, especially in their early and growth stages. It significantly entrenches antisocial tech design, expecting rapid scaling, high returns, and market dominance—often at the expense of ethical development. Market concentration inhibits innovation and confines users within systems that prioritise profit over well-being. Numerous large technology companies function as monopolies, employing opaque strategies and dominating value chains.&nbsp; Such technology monopolies pose significant challenges for smaller, prosocial platforms seeking growth. When a limited number of tech giants control infrastructure, data, and user attention, smaller platforms with ethical, inclusive, or democratic designs encounter difficulties in achieving visibility and viability. The report recommends shifting market forces by codifying liability for platform-induced harms, enforcing antitrust to level the playing field for ethical alternatives, and identifying a range of options for funding and monetising prosocial tech startups.&nbsp; Too often piecemeal tech regulation has failed to show the flood of toxicity online. Using a system’s approach, the report offers a comprehensive plan to make prosocial tech not only possible, but competitive and sustainable. Just as we expect bridges to be safe and banks to be audited, the Blueprint insists we treat <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/makeshift/addressing-nepals-digital-divide">digital infrastructure</a> with the same seriousness. Platforms should not be allowed to profit from harm while hiding behind the myth of neutrality. At its core, the Blueprint argues that platform design is social engineering. Platforms that currently amplify outrage could, with the right design and incentives, foster empathy, cooperation, and truth. Now the question is political will. Will regulators adopt tiered certifications that reward responsibility? Will investors fund platforms that prioritise well-being over profit? Will designers centre the needs of marginalised communities in their user experience decisions? The Blueprint gives us the tools. The next step is collective action for governments, technologists, and civil society alike.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025070914078_7cf29b08f9f355820f578caa88b07ef9bdf244eb9e55daf658a9861cb575e5e0.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="2025070914078_7cf29b08f9f355820f578caa88b07ef9bdf244eb9e55daf658a9861cb575e5e0" data-rendition-name="original" width="651" height="845" loading="lazy" alt="Rethinking Digital Platform Design"> </figure>  This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished from <a href="https://toda.org/global-outlook/2025/rethinking-digital-platform-design-a-systems-approach.html">the original</a> with their permission. Lisa Schirch is Research Fellow with the Toda Peace Institute and is on the faculty at the University of Notre Dame in the Keough School of Global Affairs. Schirch is the author of eleven books, including <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Social-Media-Impacts-on-Conflict-and-Democracy-The-Techtonic-Shift/Schirch/p/book/9780367541057">Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy: The Tech-tonic Shift</a>.

Rethinking Digital Platform Design

<img width="1360" height="680" src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221114091156/6372037e9c7e80680e0b2811jpeg.jpg" alt=""/>Ours is the Age of Angst. It is an era of anger, apprehension, fear, confusion, division, polarization, and an increasing distrust in and disdain for institutions. Thanks to the proliferation of digital technologies, we are both spectators and gladiators. We can switch roles in the blink of an eye, whizzing back and forth between the audience seats and the dry, dusty arena. Social media platforms have become the Colosseum of the twenty-first century. In these digital arenas – small and large, local and international – <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/latest/the-social-media-contagion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">a new fight is staged almost every day</a>, and though the contenders tend to change often, the language of loathing and mistrust remains constant. But whereas the ancient Romans were entertained by their brutal and bloody spectacles, we moderns are only made angrier by ours.The etymology of the word is important. Anger comes from the Old Norse angr, which connotes distress, affliction, sorrow, agony, hurt. Anger is directly related to pain of a kind that so many of us, East and West, now feel, though we might not express it in those terms. Underlying the shouting matches and pervasive silences, driving them, is the simple truth that we are hurting.Not that long ago, the world felt like a different place. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, optimism abounded. But it was an optimism that verged dangerously on complacency. History, many commentators maintained, could move in only one direction: linear, forward. Its arc would inevitably bend toward justice. Back then, we easily used expressions such as ‘being on the right side of history’. The underlying assumption was that tomorrow would be more democratic, inclusive, egalitarian, and interconnected than yesterday.The biggest optimists of those days were the techno-visionaries. Their buoyancy knew no bounds. Whenever they left Silicon Valley and took part in international conferences or cultural and literary festivals, they confidently assured us that information had become pure gold. It was all we needed to build a better future. With more information, and then even more, people would surely make the right political choices. The speedy spread of information would topple dictatorships and bring about much-needed social change.Sound and furyThe <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepals-e-conomy-rapidly-goes-digital/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">growth of digital platforms</a> would carry democratic ideals to the farthest corners of the world. Even those countries that were lagging behind in democratisation would sooner or later have to join ‘the civilised world’. At the beginning of the Arab Spring, this mood was so prevalent that many took it for granted that Facebook was having a positive impact on the world. Pundits and experts <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/evaluating-irans-twitter-revolution/58337/">hailed</a> the post-election uprising in Iran in 2009 as the ‘Twitter Revolution’.Around the same time, a young Egyptian couple <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Egypt_Christiane_Amanpour/egyptian-names-baby-facebook-sites-role-revolution/story?id=12964978">named</a> their newborn daughter ‘Facebook’. A few months later, a family in Israel <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13417930">named</a> their third child ‘Like’. I often think about those kids, Facebook in Egypt and Like in Israel. What kind of a world have we given them?The spread of information of course neither guaranteed nor generated democracy. Today, there is far too much information (let alone random misinformation and malicious, systemic disinformation), but very little knowledge and even less wisdom. They are completely different things, and in focusing solely on information, we have neglected knowledge and abandoned wisdom.Information is about speed, discrete snippets of data, numbers. Between ‘numbers’ and ‘numbness’ there is more than rhythm and rhyme. When we are bombarded with so much information, we do not process what we read or what we hear. A constant overload of information gives us the illusion that we have knowledge about anything and almost everything.Little by little, we have forgotten how to say, ‘I don’t know.’ If we are unfamiliar with an issue, we can easily Google it, and in the next five to ten minutes we will be able to come up with something to say about it. And if we take a few more minutes, we can even convince ourselves that we are experts – even though those snippets of information do not amount to knowledge.How can we decrease the amount of information we deal with on a daily basis, but increase our knowledge and ultimately our wisdom? For knowledge, we need to slow down and beware of dogmas, not least our own. We need to get up and leave the audience seats and the dry, dusty arenas. Knowledge requires books, reading across disciplines, slow journalism, in-depth analyses, nuanced conversations, avoiding hasty judgment. And wisdom requires us to unite the mind and the heart. For wisdom, we need not only purely rational analysis but also emotional intelligence, empathy, a sense of humility, and compassion.We need to hear each other’s stories and pay attention to the silences.The Roots of WisdomAt the beginning of the pandemic, when Londoners were allowed to go out for walks in public parks, I started noticing signs placed here and there. ‘When all this is over, how do you want the world to be different?’ they asked. Beneath the question, passersby had scribbled their own answers, using their own pens. Someone had written, ‘When all this is over, I want to live in a world where I can be heard.’It is a sad irony that in an age when we were all supposed to have a voice thanks to digital platforms and the inevitable, unstoppable spread of liberal democracy, almost the opposite has happened. Millions of people around the world feel voiceless. Amid the deafening cacophony, they know that they are not being heard.Our daily lives are replete with negative emotions that we do not know how to process or where to channel. But we do not like to talk about it, certainly not in the United Kingdom, my adopted land, where expressing emotion is considered a sign of weakness. And certainly not in my homeland, Turkey, where many absurdly presuppose that women are emotional beings whereas men are more rational.Human beings of all ages and genders are emotional creatures. When we connect with each other, we do so through stories and emotions. What we believe in or fight for depends on stories and emotions. And what we remember and take with us even when we are uprooted and deracinated, we remember through stories and emotions.I have always regarded every emotion as a source of raw energy, like a mineral that can be processed into various forms, a metal that can be sculpted into different shapes. Rather than trying to suppress our emotions, it seems healthier, and perhaps a little wiser, to recognize their existence, talk about them openly, and create inclusive spaces where we can understand and explore how our mental health is strained.It is okay not to be okay in an age such as ours. It is okay to feel worried or displeased in the face of all that is happening. The crucial question is not whether we are angry or distressed, fearful or frustrated, but what we will do with these feelings. Can we turn raw emotions into something positive and constructive, both for ourselves as individuals and for our communities and societies?Liquid TimesAt the end of the day, if there is one thing that is far more destructive than any emotion, it is the lack of all emotion: Numbness. Indifference. Lethargy of the spirit. The moment we become so desensitized to the deluge of information that we barely register what is happening in another part of the world, or just next door, is the moment we are completely severed and disconnected from each other. And that is a far more dangerous threshold. We are at a crossroads. The decisions that we make today will have long-lasting consequences for the planet, for our societies, and for our individual and collective mental health. This might be the Age of Angst, but from here to the Age of Apathy is but a short and fateful step. We need to make sure we do not take it.Many years ago, when I lived and wrote my novels in Istanbul, I was interviewed by an American scholar who was in the city researching ‘Women Writers in the Middle East’. We had a nice conversation, and in passing, with a soft, amiable smile, she told me that it was understandable for me to be a feminist: I was Turkish, and I was in Turkey. The way she spoke made it clear that she saw no reason why she should be a feminist: she was from America, a country where women’s rights had already been achieved, and where democracy was solid, stable, and safe.Yet ever since 2016, this dualistic view of the world has become incoherent. After Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, the rise of <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/the-message-is-the-medium/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">populist nationalism </a> across Europe and beyond, the erosion of liberal democracy, and the emergence of ‘illiberal democracies’ flirting with authoritarianism, this deep-rooted duality has lost its purchase in the minds of even its staunchest advocates.Now we know that there is no such thing as ‘solid’ countries. We are all living through liquid times, to use a term <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Liquid+Modernity-p-9780745624099">coined</a> by the late sociologist and political thinker Zygmunt Bauman. History does not necessarily advance in a linear way. If these are liquid times, it feels like the current has accelerated with the pandemic, the climate crisis, and the widening and deepening of inequalities – social, digital, racial, gender, class-based.This is a moment when we need global sisterhood, global solidarity. We need feminism everywhere, just as we need to care about human rights and freedom of speech and minority rights everywhere. Whether we are dentists, students, engineers, or poets, whatever we do and wherever we live, we do not have the luxury of apathy. From the possibility of another pandemic to <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/climate-change-is-a-disaster-in-the-nepal-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">environmental catastrophe</a>,  from cyber-terrorism to refugee crises, we have massive global challenges ahead, none of which can be solved with the rhetoric of nationalism, isolationism, tribalism, or group narcissism.We must connect with nature and understand our responsibility to our planet. We must connect with each other and strive to become engaged, involved, knowledgeable, and wise citizens. Connecting is our only way forward.While stories bring us together, untold stories and entrenched silences keep us apart. Our voices might not be heard by those in power. But we are not powerless, and we are not voiceless. We are capable of changing the world. © Project SyndicateElif Shafak is one of Turkey’s bestselling writers. Her books include <a href="http://www.elifsafak.com.tr/books/23">The Bastard of Istanbul</a> (Viking, 2006), <a href="http://www.elifsafak.com.tr/books/31">Three Daughters of Eve</a> (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), and, most recently, <a href="https://www.elifsafak.com.tr/book/the-island-of-missing-trees">The Island of Missing Trees</a> (Viking, 2021).

The Alchemy of Angst

“Let's have another cup of tea,” <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/ujwal-thapa-s-light-shines-on-n0tfurod">Ujwal Thapa</a> of the alternative Bibeksheel Nepali party told the young activist Pukar Bam ten years ago. The two had 12 cups of tea that day, discussing ways to get Nepal out of its political deadend. Thapa contested the Constituent Assembly election in 2013 as an independent from Kathmandu, and formed Bibeksheel Nepali to galvanise youth impatient for change, fielding candidates in the first federal election in 2017.&nbsp; Ujwal Thapa was a political guru who was way ahead of his time, and his protégés were among the RSP’s winning candidates in last week’s election. Pukar Bam was a core member of Bibeksheel Nepali until its dissolution, and won the Kathmandu-4 seat this time. Other former Bibeksheel members who won the election from the RSP in Kathmandu include Ranju Neupane from Kathmandu-1, Sasmit Pokharel from Kathmandu-5, and Biraj Bhakta Shrestha in Kathmandu-8. As votes were counted and the results from Kathmandu began to come in, the candidates paid fulsome tribute to Ujwal Thapa’s mentorship and in inspiring idealistic youth to become a part of an alternative political force.&nbsp; Today, as RSP members of Parliament, they are no longer an alternative, but a part of Nepal’s new mainstream politics. Thapa returned to Nepal after finishing his undergraduate computer science degree in the US at the peak of the Maoist insurgency. His foray into politics began when he traveled to Nepal’s western mountains to train communities in mediation. After the war, he started a computer design company for young entrepreneurs entering the workforce. But he became frustrated with the inability of the second Constituent Assembly to promulgate the Constitution, and the power struggle between political parties played out in the streets that led to frequent shutdowns paralysing the country.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260313120348_d18647d53a3b2927328067c35b2e3e6eecf9aefe13f23384e73a2c17211cd9cb.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260313120348_d18647d53a3b2927328067c35b2e3e6eecf9aefe13f23384e73a2c17211cd9cb" data-rendition-name="original" width="823" height="682" loading="lazy" alt="The RSP's activist DNA"> <figcaption>Thapa with Pukar Bam, who was elected to Parliament last week from Kathmandu-4. Photo: PUKAR BAM / FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  PROTEST TO POLITICS Ujwal Thapa had had enough, and rallied people from across walks of life, leading peaceful, silent demonstrations proclaiming 'नेपाल खुल्ला छ' against prolonged, violent strikes. Citizens fed up with the main political parties organised to defy the shutdowns. Thapa’s activism and vision for a new Nepal drew disenchanted and previously apathetic youth into politics and to join the Bibeksheel Nepali Party in 2013.&nbsp; Thapa was the pioneer of alternative politics in Nepal, and was leading a youth force long before the GenZ became synonymous with Nepal’s September Storm. He mentored and guided social activists who are today influential youth leaders engaged in non-traditional politics. “Ujwal Thapa, with his entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to address people’s pain-points, and believed that activism was the starting point to alternative politics,” explains <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/opinion/nepal-loses-rare-purpose-driven-leader">Ashutosh Tiwari</a>, former member of Bibeksheel Sajha party. “He sought to build confidence, motivate, and build a community for young people, which drew a lot of people into Bibeksheel.” He adds: “ And while people might say that Bibeksheel never got big, that was never its point. Its function was to be an early talent incubator, which is what it did as evident by the result of this election.” Thapa died in 2021 of complications related to Covid-19, and Bibeksheel had two mergers with Rabindra Mishra’s Sajha Party before being permanently dissolved in 2021. But many of its idealistic members joined Rabi Lamichhane’s RSP, formed just four months before the 2022 federal election. Such was the groundswell of support for change that the RSP became the fourth-largest in Parliament. In 2017, Ranju Neupane (then Ranju Darshana) was the youngest mayoral candidate for Kathmandu at age 21, and contested the federal election in 2022. Pukar Bam himself lost the 2022 election in Kathmandu-1 as an independent.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260313120348_6302a9b534f57191d9a2cb2c31b31449873c6cc27d375344a248dd90847921dd.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260313120348_6302a9b534f57191d9a2cb2c31b31449873c6cc27d375344a248dd90847921dd" data-rendition-name="original" width="1729" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="The RSP's activist DNA"> <figcaption>Photo: SOCIAL MEDIA</figcaption> </figure>  Sashmit Pokharel also ran an unsuccessful campaign as an independent candidate in Kathmandu during the 2022 provincial election. Later, he was a member of the City Planning Commission under Balendra Shah when he was elected mayor of Kathmandu in 2022.&nbsp; Last week, the RSP swept the election with a supermajority of 182 seats in Parliament. Voters placed their trust in the party and its leaders to steer Nepal in a new direction after the youth unrest in September.&nbsp; In many ways, Nepal’s youth have decided, just as Ujwal Thapa once did, that enough is enough with corruption, malgovernance, nepotism and dynastic politics.&nbsp; In the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/review/the-man-who-shook-our-minds">documentary</a> about his life, Dimag Ghochne Manche, released earlier this year, some RSP nominees who previously worked with and were mentored by Thapa spoke of the impact he had on their lives, career, and activism. Among them is Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, former minister of Youth and Sports who is now a second time RSP parliamentarian. “I tell everybody that if it hadn’t been for Ujwal Dai, I would not have gotten into politics,” he says in the film.&nbsp; It would be unfair to attribute all the success of the hard-fought campaigns entirely to Ujwal Thapa’s protégés and former coworkers.&nbsp; But his ethos and vision for Nepal was what inspired them, and will in the coming years be reflected in national politics through the young idealists he mentored. Says Ashutosh Tiwari: “There are many Bibeksheels outside of RSP in constant and open communication with their old friends who have been elected. They will be keeping the lawmakers in check so that they do no stray too far from the values that they grew up with.”

RSP’s activist DNA

The Bell that rang in the new A daughter stands in her family's living room, frantically ringing an actual घण्टी at her father. He is a lifelong Nepali Congress (NC) voter. She tells him his party loyalty is as humiliating as a daughter eloping.&nbsp; He looks visibly defeated, and because of RSP’s landslide sweep in this election, he has no reply. She is not a party member. Nobody told her to do this.&nbsp; Multiply this actual family scene by hundreds of thousands of households across Nepal and you find the reason for the RSP tsunami. Children ringing bells at parents over dinner. Aunties shaking bells at legacy party candidates on their morning walks. Taxi drivers, lifelong UML supporters, cheerfully announcing they have switched.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_096f980a799b4f80118863174ed629680cc6c21b02e226a899ce1dc5268b4b72.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2026031014038_096f980a799b4f80118863174ed629680cc6c21b02e226a899ce1dc5268b4b72" data-rendition-name="original" width="364" height="662" loading="lazy" alt="RSP Flag prank"> </figure>  And overseas, Nepalis in Dubai and Doha, Sydney and Seattle, calling home to deliver just one instruction: “चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप”।&nbsp; How did an election symbol like the Bell jump off a ballot paper and become weaponised for generational shame?&nbsp; The RSP's 2026 campaign is a case study in how a symbol becomes so participatory and instinctive, that citizens start campaigning on behalf of a party they never formally joined. It may look like a cult, but it is a phenomenon no political party in Nepal has ever pulled off. The ghost in the machine&nbsp; The 3-year-old RSP entered the 2026 race without the campaign infrastructure that legacy parties considered essential. It has no sister organisations, no vanguard student unions, no established cadre networks.&nbsp; In a country where ground reach and organisation wins elections, this looked like a fatal handicap. Established parties had spent decades building a top-down machinery: youth wings that mobilise on orders and unions within government. But it was all hollow and manufactured.&nbsp; That is why when the NC or UML posted a policy manifesto, it got barely 200 shares. When a 19-year-old posts an <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/spot-ai-generated-election-videos">AI video on TikTok </a>of Balendra Shah swinging a bell like a Kung Fu Hustle weapon, it gets 5 million views.&nbsp; The RSP’s very absence became its strategic advantage. Without a chain of command for content, every post felt peer-to-peer. Supporters built communities instead of following orders. Network effects took over: one person posts, three friends remix it, their followers adapt it for their own local context, and the message multiplies without a single directive from party headquarters. A TikTok from Kathmandu featuring Balendra Shah gets remixed by someone in Birganj who <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@bhojpuriyasuppor0/video/7596686360111484178?q=bhojpuri%20dub%20balen&amp;t=1773115199365">dubs it in Bhojpuri</a>. A supporter in Pokhara takes the same “अबकि बार बालेन सरकार” audio and films it over footage of the city’s broken road.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_56090217f5b3482fad934c4f76fc872047571b3c86331a4eda1ac19ae389c2fc.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="2026031014038_56090217f5b3482fad934c4f76fc872047571b3c86331a4eda1ac19ae389c2fc" data-rendition-name="original" width="375" height="646" loading="lazy" alt="Balen Bhojpuri remix"> </figure>  A Nepali worker in Dubai films himself shaking his phone at the camera, captioning it “I can't vote but my family can”. The content stays structurally the same (bell + emotion) but the surface changes every time. The format is the constant. The context is the variable. A single post multiplies into a thousand pieces of local content without anyone coordinating it. Legacy parties spent money on reach. RSP's strategy built reach for free, because participation itself was the product. The Bell, blazer and brand&nbsp; Run the sensory test. The UML's Sun symbol is only visual. You see it on a ballot, on a flag. You cannot hear a sun. You cannot perform a &nbsp;sun. Nobody walks into a room and ‘suns’ at an opponent.&nbsp; The NC’s Tree symbol is also only seen. It communicates nothing as a verb. Nobody ‘trees’ the father across the dinner table. Ujyalo Nepal's lightbulb was the most passive symbol of all, it just sits there being always on. The Bell had rare resonance as an election symbol. It is a verb (to ring), a sound (tintinnabulation), a physical action (shaking), and a metaphor (wake-up call). घण्टी is participatory by design. You do not just see it, you perform it.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260310140312_c5580164e1f11a8466f591c4d514420bb5313a34b559554db05364065486c3b7.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260310140312_c5580164e1f11a8466f591c4d514420bb5313a34b559554db05364065486c3b7" data-rendition-name="original" width="368" height="654" loading="lazy" alt="Classroom ghanti NT"> </figure>  It works as a metaphor: wake up. It works as a taunt: we are coming (“हामी आयौँ”). It operates across sensory channels a meme can travel through. The other party symbols are logos. The घण्टी is a multimedia verb in active voice. Poets on the frontline Politics has always been about performance. Murray Edelman wrote decades ago that political actions are symbolic acts: what politicians do matters less than what their actions represent.&nbsp; Guy-Ernest Debord argued that spectacle replaces lived experience. But the stage has changed. The social media feed is the new stage, and the algorithm is the casting director. It does not select for policy depth, but for recognisability, emotional charge, and remix potential. Poets have always been at the frontlines of political rupture. The French Revolution had its pamphleteers. The Bolsheviks had Mayakovsky. The Black Panthers had Gil Scott-Heron. Nepal's own political history is full of writers who paid for their words with prison or exile.&nbsp; Rap is rhythm and poetry. Balen Shah did not cross from entertainment into politics, his art was always political. “सडकबालक" in 2012 was already a protest song. The diss tracks against corruption were manifestos set to beat.&nbsp; So, if घण्टी was the sound, Balen was the voice. Supporters rang Bells to perform, projecting their hopes on Balen. One is participatory (anyone can ring it), the other is aspirational (representing what you want the country to become). Together, they form a complete symbolic system: an action and an icon, a thing you do, and a person you believe in. Both are algorithm-native. The sunglasses are instantly recognisable in a thumbnail at any size. The bell sound action is identifiable within half a second of a video starting. The confrontational attitude generates the emotional charge that the algorithm rewards.&nbsp; Balen was already trained in the language of the algorithm: hooks, rhythm, timing, and audience retention. While legacy politicians are just now trying to learn the language of the algorithm, Balen grew up speaking it. The folk song brand kit: The slogans wrote themselves. While legacy politicians are just now trying to learn the language of the algorithm, Balen has grown up speaking it. The folk song brand kit The slogans wrote themselves. “चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप” spread through tea shops and bus parks like a folk proverb. <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-s-ai-generated-election">AI-generated Mahabharat edits</a> positioned Balendra Shah as a warrior-hero fighting K P Oli in golden armour.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2026031014038_cd7fbb8b4a97628757977b55d1244b192c233566dad268e894c7132d16cf180c.png" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="2026031014038_cd7fbb8b4a97628757977b55d1244b192c233566dad268e894c7132d16cf180c" data-rendition-name="original" width="369" height="667" loading="lazy" alt="Ghanti Chhap NT"> </figure>  The entire package, partly by accident, partly by instinct, was built to be remixed. Every element is modular: the bell, the sunglasses, the slogan, the attitude. Take any piece and make your own version. Like a ‘Deusi re” song, the melody is fixed, everyone knows it, but anyone can change the words to fit their occasion and mood. It survives across generations precisely because no one controls it.&nbsp; The घण्टी ecosystem works the same way. The melody is fixed: the bell, the sound, the slogan, the sunglasses, the attitude. But the lyrics can be anyone’s. Shoot it in your neighborhood. Dub it in your language. Film your grandmother's reaction. Set it to your local context. That's why it spread faster than any IT cell could manufacture.&nbsp; The generational pincer The standard narrative is that digital movements stay digital, and that memes are a GenZ thing. RSP broke both assumptions. Its content operation executed a pincer movement across generations, capturing not just the youth vote but used youth as a delivery mechanism into households where no party organiser could reach. The Generational Pincer Flowchart Three vectors of pressure, all converging on the same target: the living room and the dinner table, where votes in Nepal are actually decided. Downward: children trolling parents by ringing bells at dinner, turning family meals into campaign arenas. A bell rings as a prank, then as a joke, then as a political statement. By the third night, it's not funny anymore. It's a conversation.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260310140316_446e465f60994532e53b1786368dd025e9ad99a387b4121493f8826c46921cb7.png" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260310140316_446e465f60994532e53b1786368dd025e9ad99a387b4121493f8826c46921cb7" data-rendition-name="original" width="364" height="669" loading="lazy" alt="Ghanti prank"> </figure>  Lateral: the diaspora pipeline. Nepalis in Australia, the Gulf, Japan, could not vote, but they turned every Viber call home into a campaign touchpoint.&nbsp; Upward: the bell pressured power itself. No RSP organiser gets a meeting with a UML ward chairman or a NC MP. But those people go home. And at home, they have teenagers, nieces, nephews, and staff whose kids are on TikTok.&nbsp; A party boss's son rings a bell at dinner and asks uncomfortable questions. A NC donor's daughter shares RSP content on her Instagram story, visible to her father's entire social circle. No political structure, no matter how hierarchical, is sealed off from its own household. The bell did not need to breach the gates of Singha Durbar, it walked in through the kitchen window. The result crossed every demographic line analysts thought was fixed. Memes didn't just stay in the feed. They colonised the living room, the kitchen, the long-distance phone call, the taxi ride. Content nobody commissioned&nbsp; What the RSP's organic content looked less like a political campaign and more like a football fan club. People were not posting because they were told to. They were posting because they belonged. Trace the trends as they accumulated: <ul> <li>“<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rameshmahto065/video/7610784878174424338?q=chup%20chap%20ghanti%20chap&amp;t=1773115568686">चुपचाप &nbsp;घण्टीमा छाप</a>” started as a TikTok post, then showed up on motorcycle stickers, WhatsApp statuses, AI-remixed songs, and in tea-shop conversation as a folk proverb.</li> <li><a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@rajjimond_18/video/7612570510508969236?q=ma%20ta%20balen%20ko%20fan&amp;t=1773115129539">Original songs composed by supporters</a>, not the party, gained millions of views. People danced to them at rallies and in the streets. People at polling booths created TikToks to RSP anthems to show their support.</li> <li>AI spectacle videos of Balen as a Mahabharat hero, filmy dialogue, stylised Nepal flag. Slapstick clips hitting 200K+ likes and 5M views. All made by random accounts, none traceable to party infrastructure.</li> <li>Supporters built Bell apps and websites on their own. One site, <a href="https://ghanti.website">ghanti.website</a>, was registered by a random supporter in January. Open it on your phone, shake it side to side, and it rings. Within weeks, crowds of supporters were walking through neighborhoods shaking their phones in unison, producing a wall of digital bell sound.</li> <li>The intimate content. A husband-wife vlog filmed inside a car, casually discussing what a lawmaker should actually do. Just two people talking, and it resonated more than any campaign ad.</li> </ul> None of this was centrally coordinated. Parties across Nepal spent money on polished graphics that looked like professional advertisements. RSP supporters spent nothing and made content that felt like conversation. The algorithm doesn't reward production value, it rewards emotional resonance. And nothing resonated more than the feeling that you, personally, could participate in this movement without anyone's permission. Now what? The RSP has a supermajority. The Bell rang louder than anyone predicted. But a movement built on open-source energy now has to deliver closed-source results: budgets, legislation, diplomacy, institutional reform. Balen built his brand by bypassing institutions, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has to run them. He communicated through Facebook posts and rap lyrics. Now he needs to communicate with India, China, and multilateral lenders.&nbsp; His midnight F-bomb post, deleted within 30 minutes but screenshotted by thousands, showed both his appeal (unfiltered authenticity) and his risk (unfiltered impulsiveness). The question is not whether the bell rang loud enough. It obviously did. The question is what happens when the supporters who posted without being asked start expecting results they did not specify. When the meme energy that won living rooms has to translate into parliamentary committees.&nbsp; For decades, the promise of democracy was that people choose their leaders. What RSP's campaign revealed is something more uncomfortable: in the age of the algorithm and remixable content, people do not just choose their leaders.&nbsp; They build the campaign, write the slogans, produce the content, convert their own families, and then show up to vote for the movement they made with their own hands. The party becomes a container for energy it didn't create and can't fully control.&nbsp; That's either the most democratic thing that's ever happened in Nepal, or the most dangerous. It might be both.

Nobody ran the campaign. That is why it worked.

Mamata Kumari Yadav was born just before her father passed his high school exam on his second attempt. Which is why Ram Kewal Ray thinks his daughter brings good luck. Mamata is now a government civil servant, and has three sisters and a younger brother. All are doing well in their professions: one is a doctor at the Army Hospital, another has an MSc in Microbiology, and the other is working in Australia after finishing her MPh. Her brother, an engineering student, is in Kathmandu. “It was all because our parents prioritised education that we did so well in life,” says Mamata. Instead of being woken up to do household chores or work on the family farm, they were encouraged to finish their homework first. While Ram showed his daughters the way and encouraged them to study, it was Sanjeev Karn, a primary school teacher at a school near their home, who motivated them to do well. On International Women's Day, the story of Mamata and her sisters is an inspiring account of dedication, hard work and good guidance.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260309070332_e15e07735cf958367ccf7457f17b181ca168def7d3c7cf01a6d1fc76559e1422.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260309070332_e15e07735cf958367ccf7457f17b181ca168def7d3c7cf01a6d1fc76559e1422" data-rendition-name="original" width="873" height="980" loading="lazy" alt="The Girl Dad of Nepal"> <figcaption>Samata, Punam, Kumudini and Mamata, the four accomplished Yadav sisters from Sarlahi</figcaption> </figure>  Boys always came first in class, but that changed when Mamata and her sisters started excelling in their studies. All four sisters consistently ranked first in their classes and became widely known in the community for their performance. “My friend Sanjay Chaudhary was my biggest competition and used to stand second. He is an engineer now. We are still good friends and laugh about how we were rivals,” recalls Mamata. In a school where no girl had previously passed the high school exam with first division, Mamata became the first to do so and set a record that her sisters later followed. Her uncle in Kathmandu called her father Ram Kewal with the news that Mamata had passed in the first division. Overjoyed, her father went to school and bought Fanta for all her teachers in celebration.&nbsp; Mamata went to Chitwan after receiving a scholarship for a health assistant course. Although her school in Sarlahi was Nepali-medium, she was not able to speak the language properly and felt more comfortable using Maithili. In the new environment, she struggled with language and confidence.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260309070324_030cd8d2bd9eb6334b5dac6f402253a582e4f3c64d03ef820327935b6dd2346e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260309070324_030cd8d2bd9eb6334b5dac6f402253a582e4f3c64d03ef820327935b6dd2346e" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1200" loading="lazy" alt="The Girl Dad of Nepal"> <figcaption>Mamata in Sarlahi with her siblings and father when she was young</figcaption> </figure>  She was surprised to learn that Maithili is not spoken all over Nepal. The course was demanding, the textbooks were in English, the student community was diverse, and academic expectations were high. But Mamata began building friendships and confidence. Her sisters later joined her in Chitwan. Mamata returned to Sarlahi and began working with an organisation as a counsellor on sexually transmitted infections. It was her first job, and was proud to be able to support her father. Her second job with a non-profit required field visits across Sarlahi district, so she bought her own second-hand scooter.&nbsp; “Some neighbours did not approve that my parents gave me so much freedom, but they did not pay much heed to such warnings or gossip,” she says. Seeking stability she prepared for the civil service exam for auxiliary health worker position and was stationed in Sindhupalchok. When her father came to drop her off, being used to flat land he was a bit nervous about the steep mountains and 90-minute commute on foot. But he was proud to hear her patients call her ‘doctor’. Later, Mamata transferred back to her home district of Sarlahi.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260309070324_2a91efea2735ba33b6e7945d46ce1c8c8f014679f14909829be3247f68619f78.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260309070324_2a91efea2735ba33b6e7945d46ce1c8c8f014679f14909829be3247f68619f78" data-rendition-name="original" width="977" height="965" loading="lazy" alt="The Girl dad of Nepal"> <figcaption>Mamata Kumari Yadav</figcaption> </figure>  On a work trip to Kathmandu, on her family's recommendation she met a young man who was pursuing a master’s degree in engineering. Their first meeting was at a cafe in the presence of her brother. She found him simple, gentle, and committed to his studies, qualities that resonated with her own personality.&nbsp; “We got married, and my parents did not have to invest in dowry for me and my sisters because they had invested in us,” recalls Mamata, who then became a health post in-charge in Lalitpur. Following administrative restructuring, she found herself reporting to juniors, which limited her sense of growth. She then decided to prepare for the civil service exams in administration. Coming from a health background, the syllabus was unfamiliar and broad. Her first attempt taken without much preparation was unsuccessful, a first failure ever for Mamata.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260309070328_19fa4ca6fde0d8a9311116c64302eddc08f22280632fc16a83c489194ef06120.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260309070328_19fa4ca6fde0d8a9311116c64302eddc08f22280632fc16a83c489194ef06120" data-rendition-name="original" width="960" height="722" loading="lazy" alt="The Girl Dad of Nepal"> <figcaption>Seeing off her sister Samata who studied MPH under the AusAID Scholarship</figcaption> </figure>  By this time, she had a son and the exam took a back seat for two years while managing her health post and raising him. When he turned two, she sent her son to Sarlahi, where her mother Phul Kumari took care of him so she could focus on her studies. This time, she passed. She became the first from her family in a government administrative position. After gaining enough experience, she aims to go back to the Madhes to serve in government positions as an honest bureaucrat. Her parents continue as they always have. Phul Kumari takes care of the household while Ram Kewal runs a pharmacy and tends to the farm back in Sarlahi. &nbsp; “We daughters owe a lot to our parents because our peers were never given the kinds of opportunities we had,” says Mamata. “They were married young and now have adult children. There is nothing girls cannot do if given the right guidance and opportunities.”

The Girl Dad of Nepal

Amidst the euphoria in Nepal about the RSP’s landslide victory, the party’s future government, possibly led by Balendra Shah will plunge headlong into an energy and economic crisis sparked by the war in West Asia. Nepal gets all its diesel, petrol, gas and aviation fuel from India and lacks a strategic stockpile to buffer against shortages. The United States has unsanctioned Russian crude oil to India for one month, but India will only export refined petroleum products to Nepal after meeting its own domestic demand. As it is, India has only 10 days of stockpile of cooking gas and it is giving preference to household use. Energy experts say new oil and gas supplies from Russia and elsewhere will take another month to arrive at Indian ports. “This conflict didn’t develop overnight, yet we did nothing to augment our reserves. Clearly, we didn’t manage procurement anticipating supply disruptions,” says economist Pushkar Bajracharya. The conflict has escalated, seriously disrupting global petroleum supplies. Nearly 20% of the world’s oil and gas moves out of the Strait of Hormuz which is now blocked. The Persian Gulf makes up most of the oil and liquified natural gas supplied to Japan (75%), India (50%) and China (38%). Crude oil prices have nearly doubled to $100 a barrel this week.&nbsp; “This crisis is only going to intensify, so in the short term, it means fuel prices will increase as will the cost of goods and services,” adds Bajracharya. “This doesn’t bode well for the new government, especially when people have such high expectations from it.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260315020356_e9f97cc4e8a41bab08fb9c318be887a7eef5ac674326a9a1c878fd80109c3ec7.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260315020356_e9f97cc4e8a41bab08fb9c318be887a7eef5ac674326a9a1c878fd80109c3ec7" data-rendition-name="original" width="1315" height="801" loading="lazy" alt="Strait of Hormuz NT"> </figure>  Fuel stoppages from India have happened before, notably during the 2015 Blockade. But Nepal could be better placed this time to cushion the shock because of the proliferation of battery-operated vehicles, and electrification of household cooking to some extent. “The increase in electric vehicles provides some relief, but it is not enough,” says energy economist and former Water Resources Minister Dipak Gyawali. “Most critical services still run on diesel, and they cannot be replaced overnight.”&nbsp; Nepal’s expanding road network means diesel and petrol consumption is also increasing. If the war drags on, there will be a critical shortage of aviation fuel that could also hurt tourism at the start of the trekking and mountaineering season. There is already a nationwide shortage of cooking gas which is used by 62% of Nepali households. &nbsp; The fuel crisis will have a knock-on effect on the economy which the RSP government will have to tackle on an emergency footing as soon as it comes into office. The priority would be to cap fuel prices with subsidies, control hoarding, and in the longer term expedite the switch to electricity for transportation and cooking.&nbsp; MONEY IN The other impact will be on jobs in West Asia and remittances. Nearly half the $11 billion a year Nepalis send home every year comes from West Asian countries. Nepal’s hard currency reserves have hit a record high $21.09 billion, but that cash will be of no use if there is no fuel to buy. A sharp drop in remittances due to the collapse of the economies of the Gulf states if the war is prolonged will have a multiplier impact particularly on Nepalis' household expenses and the country’s economy in general. This in turn will have a knock-on effect on investment, and affect the RSP government’s main agenda which is to create jobs at home. The vicious cycle will then mean that more Nepalis will want to migrate for overseas jobs, but options in the Gulf may not be available. The RSP’s ministers in government will have to come up with innovative ways to re-integrate Nepalis forced to return because they lose their jobs, or for safety reasons. There are nearly 2 million Nepalis across the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and another 7,000 mainly women caregivers in Israel. “Other than the impact on remittances and the economy, there could be the additional challenge of rescuing over 2 million Nepalis in West Asia if it comes to that,” says Bajracharya. “We don’t have the resources, and we will have to rely on India’s logistical help.” The RSP’s main vote bank was among global Nepalis, who could not cast &nbsp;ballots themselves but influenced families and friends back home to choose the party. Social media was abuzz with slogans that promoted how choosing the RSP would bring their children back home from the Gulf. “The RSP got a majority, and that’s a good thing but voters came together to oppose UML, NC and the Maoists. But there is no clear ideology or philosophy, so while their slogan to bring Nepalis back from the Gulf sounds nice, what would they come back to?” asks Gyawali. The Nepali diaspora in the Gulf that influenced the electorate so effectively will now be looking at how the government it helped get to power in Kathmandu will help as war engulfs the region.&nbsp; There is an almost unrealistically high expectation of the RSP, and the party may not even get the customary 100-day honeymoon period. The cabinet could be put together easily enough, but the bureaucracy, judiciary, police, and the Upper House are all populated by loyalists of the old parties. Despite bad blood, the RSP will have to work together with all parties in the face of the crisis unleashed by the war. And Nepal’s politicised foreign policy must be galvanised to deal with the crisis.

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