People's Movements of Nepal: From Jana Andolan to the 2025 Gen Z Uprising

A "people's movement" (Nepali: jana andolan) is a sustained mass mobilisation demanding a fundamental change in how Nepal is governed. Since the late 1970s, six waves of protest have repeatedly redrawn the country's political map: the 1979 student protests, the first People's Movement of 1990 (Jana Andolan I), the second People's Movement of 2006 (Jana Andolan II), the Madhesh movements of 2007 and 2015, the parallel Tharuhat/Tharu movement, and the Gen Z uprising of September 2025. Each is taught in Nepali schools and searched heavily online, yet they are usually described only inside broad history chapters rather than on their own pages.

The arc runs in one broad direction: from an absolute, party-less monarchy toward a federal democratic republic, with each movement conceding ground the previous one had won and then demanding more. The 1979 protests forced a referendum on the Panchayat system; Jana Andolan I ended it and restored multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy; Jana Andolan II ended royal rule and set up the republic; the Madhesh and Tharu movements forced federalism and identity-based restructuring into the 2015 constitution; and the 2025 uprising toppled an elected government over corruption and a social-media ban.

This page is a directory. Each movement below is a standalone deep dive covering causes, timeline, key organisers, casualties and outcomes. Dates are given in the Gregorian (AD) calendar with the Bikram Sambat (BS) year noted where commonly used in Nepal (BS runs roughly 56-57 years ahead of AD).

The 1979 student protests (BS 2036) were a nationwide wave of unrest during April and May 1979, sparked in part by student anger over the execution of Pakistani leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and by long-simmering frustration with the party-less Panchayat system that King Mahendra had imposed in 1960. What began as campus agitation in Kathmandu spread to Bhaktapur, Patan, Birgunj, Bharatpur and beyond, with clashes reported in 37 of Nepal's then 75 districts. Official figures put the toll at 11 killed and 164 wounded.

The movement did not overthrow the system, but it forced a historic concession. On 23 May 1979 King Birendra announced a national referendum on whether to keep the Panchayat with reforms or move to a multiparty system. Held on 2 May 1980, the referendum returned a narrow win for a reformed Panchayat, roughly 55 percent to 45 percent.

Though the vote preserved the palace's system, the 1979 movement is remembered as the seed of later change: it proved that mass student mobilisation could wring a nationwide vote out of an absolute monarch, and it built the organisational networks and grievances that Jana Andolan I would later channel.

Jana Andolan I (BS 2046) was the pro-democracy uprising that ended three decades of party-less Panchayat rule. It was launched on 18 February 1990, a date now marked as Democracy Day, by an alliance of the banned Nepali Congress and the United Left Front (a coalition of communist parties). Their core demand was the restoration of a multiparty parliamentary system and the lifting of the ban on political parties.

The state responded with mass arrests of party leaders and a press crackdown, but the movement escalated over roughly seven weeks. Police fired on demonstrators in several towns, with a notorious shooting in Bhaktapur, and by early April 1990 huge crowds were marching in the Kathmandu Valley. Under mounting pressure, King Birendra lifted the ban on political parties in April 1990 and agreed to reform.

The outcome was a new Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal promulgated in November 1990, which vested sovereignty in the people, guaranteed fundamental rights and established a constitutional monarchy with a multiparty parliament. An interim government under Nepali Congress leader Krishna Prasad Bhattarai oversaw the transition, and the first multiparty elections in decades followed in 1991. Jana Andolan I is the foundational reference point for every movement that came after it.

The second People's Movement, Jana Andolan II (BS 2062-063), was the 19-day uprising from 6 to 24 April 2006 that ended King Gyanendra's direct rule. Its trigger was the king's February 2005 royal coup, in which he dismissed the government, jailed politicians and seized executive power on the pretext of crushing the Maoist insurgency. In November 2005 the seven mainstream parliamentary parties (the Seven Party Alliance) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) reached a 12-point understanding to jointly oppose the palace.

From 6 April 2006 a general strike and daily mass protests spread nationwide, defying curfews and shoot-on-sight orders. Security forces killed roughly two dozen people over the 19 days. Facing crowds estimated in the hundreds of thousands in the Kathmandu Valley, on 24 April 2006 the king reinstated the House of Representatives he had earlier dissolved, and the parties formed a government under Nepali Congress leader Girija Prasad Koirala.

Jana Andolan II's consequences were sweeping. The reinstated parliament stripped the monarchy of most powers, and on 21 November 2006 the government and the Maoists signed the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), formally ending the decade-long civil war (1996-2006). Constituent Assembly elections in 2008 led the assembly, at its first sitting on 28 May 2008, to abolish the 240-year-old monarchy and declare Nepal a federal democratic republic. The day of the king's climbdown is now commemorated as Loktantra (Democracy) Day.

The Madhesh movement is a series of uprisings in the southern Tarai plains demanding equal citizenship, identity, proportional representation and a federal structure for the Madhesi people. The first Madhesh Andolan erupted in January 2007. On 15 January 2007 the Seven Party Alliance promulgated an interim constitution without an explicit commitment to federalism; the next day, Upendra Yadav's Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) burned copies of it at Maitighar Mandala in Kathmandu. The death of student activist Ramesh Mahato in Lahan galvanised the plains, and by early February 2007 around two dozen people had been killed.

The 2007 movement won concrete gains: the interim constitution was amended to declare Nepal a federal state, an electoral constituency commission was created, and proportional inclusion of Madhesis and other marginalised groups in state bodies was promised. A shorter second Madhesh agitation followed in 2008 over the terms of that inclusion.

The third and bloodiest phase came in 2015. As the Constituent Assembly finalised a new constitution, Madhesi and Tharu groups protested that the proposed seven-province federal map split and diluted their communities. Protests across the Tarai from August 2015, and the promulgation of the constitution on 20 September 2015, were met with a heavy police response; roughly 45 to 57 people, including protesters and police, were killed over several months. From late September 2015 an unofficial border blockade choked fuel, medicine and cooking gas for around 135 days into early 2016, deepening a humanitarian crisis before the agitation subsided without full acceptance of Madhesi demands.

Running alongside the Madhesh movements is the Tharuhat/Tharuwan movement of the Tharu people, an Indigenous community of the western and central Tarai. Gaining momentum from around 2007-2009, it demanded recognition of Tharu identity, land rights and a separate identity-based province rather than being absorbed into geography-based provinces dominated by hill or Madhesi populations.

The movement is most associated with the Tikapur incident of 24 August 2015 in Kailali district. During a Tharuhat protest, a violent confrontation with police left eight people dead, including seven police personnel and a two-year-old child; one officer, Sanjay Kishor (also reported as a colleague), was killed and a policeman was burned. The killings triggered reprisal violence against Tharu communities and a broader police crackdown across the western Tarai, and the case became a deeply contested symbol.

The Tharu community has long argued that Tikapur should be treated as part of a political movement rather than purely as a crime, and that promises to amend the constitution to address Tharuhat autonomy were never fully honoured. Core Tharu demands, land rights, identity-based federal restructuring, transitional justice and a political settlement for Tikapur, remain only partly resolved, keeping the movement politically live.

The Gen Z uprising of September 2025 (BS 2082) was the deadliest single episode of protest in Nepal's recent history and the first to topple an elected government rather than a monarchy. The immediate trigger was the government's order on 4 September 2025 shutting down 26 social-media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit and LinkedIn, for failing to register under new rules. The ban collided with a viral "Nepo Kids" trend contrasting the lavish lifestyles of politicians' children with widespread youth unemployment and anger over entrenched corruption.

Largely youth-led and organised online, mass protests began on 8 September 2025 and were met with lethal force in Kathmandu, where police killings of demonstrators near the parliament caused the first large loss of life. The government lifted the social-media ban that evening, but protests intensified. On 9 September crowds set fire to the parliament, party offices and the homes of senior leaders, and Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli resigned. The army imposed a nationwide curfew and took control of security on 10 September.

In the aftermath the president appointed former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister on 12 September 2025, making her Nepal's first woman to lead the government; parliament was dissolved and fresh elections were scheduled for 5 March 2026. Official and rights-group tallies put the toll at roughly 74 to 76 dead, including protesters, police and inmates killed during prison breakouts, with over 2,000 injured. Human rights organisations have called for accountability for the use of lethal force, and the uprising's long-term constitutional consequences were still unfolding into 2026.

Across nearly five decades, Nepal's movements share a recurring pattern: an unaccountable centre of power (a party-less palace, a royal autocrat, an exclusionary constitution, or an out-of-touch elected class), a triggering act of repression or overreach, rapid mass mobilisation that defies curfews, and a negotiated climbdown that concedes major structural change. Each victory has also left unfinished business, from transitional justice for conflict-era crimes to full implementation of federalism and inclusion, which becomes the grievance behind the next wave.

The movements also mark a shift in who leads. The 1979 and 1990 movements were driven by underground parties and students; 2006 fused parties with an armed insurgency; the Madhesh and Tharu movements were identity-based and regional; and 2025 was a leaderless, online-organised youth revolt with no single party at its head. Together they explain how Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a federal democratic republic, and why its politics remains contested.

For study and citation, treat each section as a standalone entry: note the date range, the lead organisers, the casualty figures (indicative where a range is given, as sources differ), and the concrete outcome. This directory gives commonly cited ranges and cites primary and reputable secondary sources below.