NEW DELHI—Again-to-back student-led uprisings in Bangladesh and Nepal have toppled governments there, signaling a generational shift in South Asian politics. From Colombo to Dhaka to Kathmandu, Technology Z is rising as a disruptive pressure, difficult corruption, dynastic elites, and stagnant economies.
The size and pace of those social actions have shocked entrenched political lessons of their respective international locations—but additionally the political leaders of India, the area’s greatest and most influential nation. India now finds itself grappling with an sudden query: What does its rise as a worldwide energy imply when its rapid neighborhood is in political free fall?
Understanding India’s present predicament requires an appreciation of the standard foundations of its diplomatic dominance in South Asia. Due to its huge inhabitants and financial system, its smaller neighbors have usually trusted it for commerce, transit, vitality, and labor markets, whereas its navy energy made it a safety guarantor. By serving because the area’s essential transportation conduit, the dominant purchaser of products, and the biggest provider of support and protection help, India loved political leverage over close by international locations.
Some felt this leverage was misused. India sparked controversy, for instance, when it utilized an financial blockade towards Nepal in 2015, intervened militarily in Sri Lanka via the Indian Peace Conserving Pressure (IPKF), and even deployed troops within the Maldives. However India’s regional sphere of affect was principally taken as a right—till the latest wave of youth-led uprisings began redefining South Asian politics, leaving Delhi struggling to maintain tempo.
Amrita Basu, a professor of political science, argues that the area’s latest uprisings sign a generational rupture within the area. Not like earlier actions that had been tied to nationalist or liberationist legacies, right now’s college students in Bangladesh and Nepal reject loyalty to long-standing allegiances. “These protests are each pragmatic, demanding jobs primarily based on benefit moderately than patronage, and a stand for democratic beliefs towards rising authoritarianism,” Basu mentioned.
This generational break is seen in how these actions mix conventional road energy with digital technique. “This tech-savvy era is linked globally via the web and studying from one another,” scholar Nusrat Chowdhury famous in an interview with Overseas Coverage “Bangladeshis took cues from Sri Lankan protests, whereas younger Nepalis had been inspired by occasions in Bangladesh. Mockingly, when governments shut down the web to curb protests, it typically has the alternative impact, fueling extra anger.”
These interconnected youth actions expose basic weaknesses in South Asian political stability that stretch past particular person international locations. They’ve additionally undermined India’s function as a supplier of such stability—and a beneficiary. Finally, India’s capability to mission energy globally relies on the upkeep of a big diploma of calm within the area.
However India’s conventional diplomatic strategy within the area primarily based on historic linkages and cultural diplomacy appears to be working towards its limits, with its neighbors viewing it as unable to ship on native expectations of financial development and growth. This has compelled India right into a reactive posture with penalties past the area. Waseem Malla, a analysis fellow on the New Delhi-based Worldwide Centre for Peace Research, argues that “being confined to a regional firefighting function is at odds with the worldwide ambition of a regional energy like India.”
“If India stays perpetually caught in regional crises, its capability to pivot outward and commit strategic capital within the Indo-Pacific will get affected,” Malla mentioned. “This creates doubts about New Delhi’s utility in Washington’s Indo-Pacific imaginative and prescient as a counterweight to China.”
Nowhere is that this strategic lure clearer than in Bangladesh. Months of demonstrations led by college college students swelled right into a nationwide rebellion towards corruption and authoritarianism. The autumn of Hasina’s authorities despatched tremors throughout South Asia, not solely as a result of it ended one of many area’s longest dynasties but additionally as a result of it was pushed nearly solely by younger individuals who had grown up below shrinking democratic area. Their victory reverberated throughout campuses in Nepal, the place college students noticed, in Bangladesh, a validation of their very own discontent.
Basu, the professor of political science, noticed that the uprisings in Bangladesh and Nepal characterize a pointy break with previous patterns. “There are three vital variations,” she mentioned. “First, social media performed an important function—governments tried to limit entry, however that backfired. Second, not like earlier party-led protests, these actions had been decentralized and leaderless. Third, the objectives had been totally different: They targeted on the fabric well-being of Gen Z youth.”
For India, these upheavals have created rapid challenges. Bangladesh’s turmoil since August 2024 has spilled into India’s safety and financial system: Indian forces apprehended 2,601 Bangladeshi nationals crossing illegally from January 2024 via January 2025, an 80 p.c surge after the unrest started. Exports to Bangladesh fell from $11.46 billion in fiscal 24 to $11.06 billion in fiscal 25, whereas rail cargo visitors dropped by 45 p.c.
Equally, Nepal’s protests have compelled India to tighten surveillance alongside the 1,751 kilometer (1,090 mile) border, limit crossings, and soak up shocks to tourism and commerce. These numbers illustrate how rapidly political upheaval interprets into prices for India, forcing New Delhi to divert assets from broader objectives to disaster administration.
Past Nepal and Bangladesh, India additionally faces pressures on its western and northeastern fronts. The Taliban’s return in Afghanistan has revived fears of militancy spilling into Kashmir, whereas Pakistan’s financial and political turmoil complicates border safety.
Within the east, unrest in Manipur and mass evictions in Assam intersect with refugee flows from Bangladesh and Myanmar, exhibiting how exterior crises and home fragilities feed into each other. These overlapping pressures compound India’s inner unrest even because it initiatives itself as a stabilizing energy and main voice of the worldwide south. The contradiction is stark: Whereas New Delhi aspires to world management, its rapid periphery stays unstable, forcing fixed firefighting that diverts consideration from longer-term regional ambitions.
For policymakers, the concern is contagion. With youth unemployment at document highs and universities more and more restive, Delhi acknowledges that the identical frustrations that toppled governments in Nepal and Bangladesh exist at house. The state has responded with tighter surveillance of campuses, censorship of scholar teams, and restrictions on on-line activism.
Uday Chandra, an impartial political analyst, added that India’s trajectory since independence has typically resembled these of its neighbors. “The identical legitimacy loss that enabled youth uprisings in weaker states occurred in India with the Anna Hazare anti-corruption motion in 2011, but it surely was channeled into electoral change moderately than regime collapse.”
This inner strategy has undermined India’s credibility. India confronted a clumsy dilemma with Bangladesh, having backed Hasina as a dependable companion whereas overlooking the erosion of democratic freedoms below her rule. When college students toppled her authorities, New Delhi was left scrambling.
“India’s response has disillusioned Gen Z activists throughout the area,” Basu mentioned. “In Bangladesh, India offered refuge to Hasina whereas ignoring activists’ reform objectives. In Nepal, India claimed neutrality however appeared out of contact with youth demanding accountability.”
This generational disconnect is stark within the phrases of those that lived via the uprisings.
“Hasina’s rule was broadly seen as propped up by India. When Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi visited Dhaka, protests erupted, and folks had been jailed or disappeared,” mentioned Ahmed Samran, a 23-year-old scholar of enterprise administration. “For our era, this mistrust grew to become seen round 2015 in the course of the India-Bangladesh World Cup cricket match. Many younger folks felt humiliated and started questioning India’s perspective towards Bangladesh.”
Samran distinguished between cultural appreciation and political mistrust: “We admire Indian tradition movies, music, variety and valued solidarity from Indian activists throughout our protests. However we can’t belief India as a authorities or regional chief. Many younger Bangladeshis really feel India has misplaced ethical credibility, which opens area for different powers, like China.”
This credibility deficit displays deeper structural constraints. Malla, the analysis fellow, mentioned that “India’s perceived big-brotherly strategy has typically grow to be a legal responsibility. Its insurance policies are likely to align intently with ruling elites, creating long-term dangers.” Financial limitations compound the issue: “There’s a credibility hole as a result of India’s incapacity at instances to ship on developmental guarantees,” he added. “This opens area for China, which has strengthened its foothold and earned goodwill within the area.”
The problem for Indian policymakers is navigating between outdated interventionist instincts and strategic paralysis. “Rigging elections in favor of most popular candidates would scale back Indian leverage now, however inaction is equally unacceptable,” Chandra famous. “The result’s excessive warning blended with pragmatism concerning the prices and advantages of any intervention.”
“India’s conventional neighborhood technique has been transactional, providing credit score or support in alternate for loyalty,” he added. “That strategy has backfired, fueling Huge Brother accusations and driving neighbors towards China. However China’s embrace comes with strings too, which has introduced India again into the equation.”
The problem, Chandra argued, is adjusting to a brand new regional actuality. Smaller states comparable to Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh are now not passive recipients of affect; they now stability ties with each powers whereas guarding sovereignty.
This competitors, he mentioned, creates new leverage for smaller states: “The existence of each India and China permits them to rethink nationwide identification in dialogue with rising middle-class aspirations. Their interactions with the regional giants are formed by overlapping but contradictory pursuits of the robust and the weak.”
But, whereas states maneuver between powers, South Asia’s youth-led actions face acquainted limits. Chowdhury argued that Bangladesh’s 2024 rebellion sparked hope however didn’t ship reforms, echoing the Arab Spring.
That leaves India at a crossroads: World management will stay hole except it wins the belief of a era decided to assert its future.
