Nepal's revolution and India's backyard diplomacy

Kathmandu’s blazes of this month are not just Nepal’s issue—their peril is for South Asia. The explosion of protests by Nepal’s impatient youth against corruption, elitism, and inequality toppled Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli and rattled the very foundations of Nepal’s fragile democracy. However, the uprising was not just an internal affair; it burst the bubble of stability that India had long tried to impose upon its neighbourhood.
Nepal’s crisis is not an exception. It comes after the sudden ousting of Sheikh Hasina from office in Bangladesh last year and Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown in 2022, when the Rajapaksa family was ousted. All three crises suggest a new South Asian trend: established elites being ousted by a new generation of leaders who will not tolerate corruption, nepotism, and authoritarianism. For India—a global power on the rise that aspires to represent the Global South—this tide of democratic revolutions is undermining its “backyard diplomacy” increasingly.
A Chain of Revolutions in South Asia: South Asia has become a political laboratory where legitimacy is being tested to its limits. In Bangladesh, Hasina’s previously unassailable grip was broken by the strain of authoritarian excess: internet shutdowns, wholesale arrests of opposition leaders, and a bloody crackdown on student protests. In Sri Lanka, widespread indignation over shortages of foodstuffs, fuel, and medicine mobilized hundreds of thousands to protest on the streets of Colombo in 2022, forcing Gotabaya Rajapaksa out of office.
Nepal, a 30 million-strong Himalayan nation with strong cultural ties to India, is the latest nation to be embroiled in the youth-led revolution, with caretaker Prime Minister Sushila Karki being forced to order early polls for 2026. The shared experience is this: the public no longer tolerates unaccountable governance.
Across the region, collective indignation hangs together in three basic grievances: corruption, rising inequality, and dynastic hubris. South Asia’s huge youth populations—over 60 per cent of Bangladesh’s population is under 35—are wired, digitally literate, and demanding reform. For India, the message is clear. New Delhi has relied on a varied arsenal of economic aid, cultural understanding, and occasionally coercive pressure to maintain its influence in the region over the years. But the recent unrest also reveals a richer truth: India is viewed by many of its neighbours as both essential and arrogant, a trading and petroleum supply partner, but as well a constitution violator, a border violator, and an intruder into the internal politics.
Nepal’s Long Tradition of Revolt: To understand today’s revolt, it is essential to position it within Nepal’s timeline of popular uprising. Nepalese are not doing it again for the first time overheating incumbency.
The People’s Movement of 1990 (Jana Andolan I). The people’s big protests forced King Birendra to abolish the absolute monarchy and create a multiparty democracy. India’s subtle but vital intervention facilitated negotiations.
The Maoist Insurgency and People’s Movement of 2006 (Jana Andolan II). Over 17,000 individuals were murdered in a ten-year civil war. In 2006, a second wave of mass protests paralysed the country, forcing King Gyanendra to surrender power. Two years later, the monarchy was abolished.
2015 Blockade and Constitution. the issuance of a new constitution fuelled Madhesi grievances by the margins. India’s de facto blockade of fuels and goods added fuel to the fire, forcing Nepal to inch closer towards China.
Seen in this light, the current revolution is part of a tradition where Nepali citizens are kept under the yoke of political elites who never fulfil. The only difference is that there are now many more numbers, and the global connectivity via the internet makes their slogan resonate even more. For India, what it implies is that it is always unsafe to wager on any single leader or government within Kathmandu—populist uprisings can turn the script around overnight.
The Shadow of China: Beijing moves swiftly on every opportunity that India misses. The Belt and Road Initiative of China has revolutionized the geography of South Asia in one vital respect. In Sri Lanka, Beijing invested in the Hambantota Port, which Colombo was forced to lease to China for 99 years after defaulting on the loan. In Pakistan, the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor has been Beijing’s jewel in its regional ambitions. And in Nepal, India’s 2015 blockade, commonly viewed as a tit-for-tat action over constitutional differences, overwhelmingly benefited Beijing. The lessons of the blockade remain feeling in Nepal’s foreign policy choices.
China’s increasing influence extends beyond infrastructure. Beijing has wisely promoted political leaders in Kathmandu, Colombo, Dhaka, and Male, playing patron without intruding upon local politics—far from India’s apparently heavy hand.
Bangladesh, under Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Muhammad Yunus, has become the latest arena of Sino-Indian competition. Yunus, whose social business genius has earned him global recognition, has already signed trade and investment agreements with China. This is a setback for India, which had invested in Hasina as a strategic ally.
Aided by the issue, Hindutva-ramified rhetoric coming out of New Delhi is inducing bitterness in neighbouring Muslim-dominated Bangladesh and the Maldives, as well as Buddhist Sri Lanka. Where India might have leveraged soft power based on its shared history and culture, its hyper-nationalist narrative instead threatens to alienate communities that had long looked to India as a natural leader.
India’s Dilemma: India’s much-hyped “Neighbourhood First” policy was designed to emanate cultural proximity and shared prosperity. It continues to fail, however, amid home-court politics and a zero-sum race with China. When New Delhi decided to support discredited autocrats—from Hasina in Dhaka to Oli in Kathmandu—it overrode the sentiments of ordinary citizens. When those autocrats were overthrown, India got drawn into their own unpopularity. The paradox of Indian policy is stark.
On the one hand, Delhi has demonstrated consistency in backing humanitarian assistance—dispatching relief after Nepal’s 2015 earthquakes, exporting vaccines during the pandemic, and providing emergency fuel to Sri Lanka amid its fuel crisis. On the other hand, it has compromised this with internal political interference or border militarization.
The 2015 Nepal blockade, which contributed to distress following the earthquakes, is but a case in point. Similarly, in Bangladesh, visa bans and border tensions undercut people-to-people ties despite decades of cross-border kinship. This aid-stamped hubris is fertile ground for roots of resentment deep, and China has an opportunity to become a more trustworthy partner.
Michael Kugelman has referred to South Asia as a “powder keg.” The analogy is apt. The subcontinent holds one quarter of the entire human population, and a demographic bulge of frustrated, young individuals whom dynasties or benefactors overseas no longer fetter. These publics, enabled by social media and global connectivity, can mobilize in a flash—as have these publics in Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Colombo.
India aspires to represent the Global South, sitting on G20 gatherings and the global stage as a mediator between the developed and developing worlds. But if India’s immediate neighbourhood is indifferent to it, not seeing it as open, liberal, or altruistic, that global position will be for naught.
What India Needs to Do: If India is not to be outwitted by Beijing and distrusted in the neighbourhood, it must radically change its regional diplomacy. Four things are necessary:
Respect Domestic Sovereignty. Rather than looking up to strongmen, India must make more of an effort to support democratic processes and institutions. Stability comes from governments accountable to society, not individuals.
Expand Inclusive Economic Partnerships. India needs to move beyond transactional credit lines to green energy partnerships, digital connectivity, climate resilience, and youth entrepreneurship—sectors that touch common people’s lives.
Dial Down Hindutva in Foreign Policy. Religious majoritarianism can keep India together domestically, but it excludes Muslims in Bangladesh and the Maldives and Buddhists in Sri Lanka. India’s pluralist history has to inform its foreign policy.
Compete with China on Trust. While Beijing can offer dollars and harbors, India has the capacity to offer trust, open borders, cultural affinity, and historical solidarity. Such intangible capital is India’s true comparative advantage—but only if it does not compel it to do so.
A Crossroads: India still possesses what no other rival foreign power has. Its economy is the fastest growing in the region. Its diaspora predominates worldwide. Its cultural influence—from Bollywood to yoga—is unmatched. Influence is not destiny, however. Dhaka, Kathmandu, and Colombo are telling the region a message: India can’t be the boss—it needs to listen, learn, and lead humbly. The riots engulfing South Asia are not just crises, but opportunities. If New Delhi can begin to regard its neighbours as equals rather than dependents, it can transform unrest into solidarity. But if it clings to hubris, it will have to look over its shoulder at the shadow of China stretching across the Himalayas and the Indian Ocean. The South Asian youth are remaking the political script. The question is whether India will be read into it—or written out of it.
Conclusion: South Asia is not a passive neighbourhood waiting to be ruled out of New Delhi. It’s an agitated, wake-up zone where youths, with memory and modernity as their weapons, are rewriting the rules of governance and accountability. From Dhaka’s streets to Colombo’s squares and now Kathmandu’s boulevards, the message is clear: legitimacy must be earned, not claimed.
It is a moment of reckoning for India. It will remain wedded to an imperialistic mentality—viewing neighbours as dependencies to be disciplined, markets to be plundered, or buffers to be dominated. That path will only hasten resentment and create opportunities for Beijing’s rise in South Asia. Or India can choose empathy—recognising the reality that its strength lies not in coercion, but in self-confidence, unity, and a shared vision of a democratic and affluent region.
India has assets of the past none of its rivals can claim: cultural identity, linguistic ties, penetrability of the ground, and the legacy of common struggles against colonialism. These are jewels beyond price—if used in humility instead of pride. The South Asian insurrections cannot be seen as India’s problems in themselves. Instead, they are attempts to realign its foreign policy in tune with the moods of the common people, who yearn for justice and dignity. What is at risk here is India’s regional hegemony. What is at stake is the legitimacy of its global ambition to become the leader of the Developing World. A superpower can hardly lead the Third World if it cannot gain the trust of its own people.
South Asia’s young are growing up confident, resilient, and innovative. They dream of jobs, equality, and a world free from hegemony and dynasties. Whether India chooses to walk with them—or against them—will determine whether it becomes the region’s darling leader or its isolated giant. The Kathmandu fires are not just Nepal’s wake-up call but India’s last chance to make its backyard a neighbourhood of equals. India can do so—but the clock is running.

sibhuiyan@yahoo.com