This is one of the rare occasions when I must write a column in first-person singular. The third person, composed and distant, serves quite well in scrutinising events. A review of the context and content is also possible with some detachment. Prognosis of likely consequences requires some objectivity. But bare facts cannot hold tremors of individual torment. Grief, bewilderment and perplexity are emotions that demand involvement, especially when reflections turn to lament.

Like many others, I was unable to make any sense of the senselessness that engulfed the socio-political economy of the country after the youth-led protests on September 8 and 9, 2025. The aftermath of the protest has left 74 confirmed dead and over 1,800 injured at the last count. A little over half of nearly 16,000 escapees from jails, detention centres and juvenile correction facilities are still at large. Over 1,100 weapons—both large and small with lots of ammunition—have been looted from police bases.

The profit sector claims that it has suffered a loss of 80 billion rupees due to arson and theft that followed police firing. Along with commercial outlets, several private houses belonging to prominent personalities have also been vandalised and burnt down.

It’s difficult to put a monetary value on what the State has lost: heritage buildings such as Singha Durbar, irreplaceable Supreme Court records, service delivery infrastructure across the country, and, most of all, its image as the guarantor of peace and security. The morale of law enforcement agencies has hit rock bottom.

Publicly ridiculed, uniform stripped, weapons snatched and some of their colleagues beaten to death, police personnel have never been as despondent as now since the end of armed conflict with the Maoists in 2006. For nearly 36 hours, the State remained conspicuously absent as the legislature, executive and judiciary buildings burned—without a single firefighting unit in sight.

Four of the country’s most popular media outlets—Kantipur Publications, Kantipur Television, Kantipur Radio and the Kantipur Digital platform—were also torched in a concerted attack.

I continue to hold that the divisive constitution written with the blood of over 50 Madhesi martyrs in 2015 doesn’t deserve my veneration—being ruled under the charter doesn’t imply accepting its sanctity. Every year, I politely decline invitations to ‘celebrate’ the statute. This year, the realisation struck me that it was not just the constitution but the very idea of constitutionalism that was at risk. I decided to attend the official ceremony on September 20, 2025, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, just to see how the high and mighty of the land perceived the situation.

The presidential complex still bears marks of the fire that engulfed it on September 9. Nepal Army soldiers stood guard but failed to protect the office of their own supreme commander-in-chief—President Ram Chandra Paudel—as it was set ablaze by arsonists. The ceremony’s atmosphere resembled a funeral, with participants in formal dress and grim faces appearing to mourn the charter. President Paudel delivered a requiem of sorts, lamenting the moribund state of the statute while calling on political parties, the government, state institutions and citizens to unite and breathe new life into it.

It was still drizzling when I stepped out of the brief ceremony at Shital Niwas. The rain seemed forlorn, echoing the country’s recurring descent into hopelessness every decade or so in its modern history since 1951.

Autumnal rain

Even a gentle September shower brings back the melancholia of the third Madhesh Uprising in 2015, when a single bullet struck Ramshila Mandal of Jaleshwar almost exactly between her eyes as she stood under a building’s eaves to escape the downpour. The media in Kathmandu closed its eyes to the brutal suppression in Madhesh. The civil society turned a deaf ear towards the pain of fellow citizens. The intelligentsia remained on mute. And the State portrayed itself as victors against its own people. Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli marched into Baluwatar as the protector of national interest.

Ironically, ethnonational chieftain Sharma Oli had to be helicoptered out of the prime minister's official residence by the Nepal Army on September 9, 2025, seeking refuge in its barracks to escape the fury of nationalist protesters enraged by his years of nationalist antics instead of good governance.

The 9/11 in Madhesh of 2015 continues to haunt the memories of those who witnessed its peaceful protests. The 9/9, 2025 may serve as a reminder to law enforcement agencies that they must earn the trust of the people they are meant to serve. Meanwhile, the apathetic civil society of the dominant community needs to recognise that an ethnonational regime does not guarantee effective governance.

Ideological vacuum

The urban uprising of 9/8-9, 2025, showed the power of youth anger. However, it also carries its perils: Revolutions fuelled by rage but lacking a unifying ideology or clear vision often falter, leading to authoritarian resurgence, societal disillusionment or even outright anarchy.

The Arab Spring exemplifies the pattern. Tunisia’s 2011 Jasmine Revolution ousted President Ben Ali but lacked a cohesive ideological framework, resulting in democratic backsliding under President Kais Saied. Similarly, Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square uprising, despite its initial success, suffered from ideological fragmentation among secularists, Islamists, and revolutionaries, leading to military reassertion.

A year after students’ protests, Bangladesh is still waiting for the promised elections. The Aragalaya in Sri Lanka was supposed to be “not as a noun—not as a completed event—but rather as a verb—as continuing struggle”. But the coalition that rode to power on anti-establishment promises cut deals with the very forces it had once opposed. Ultimately, politics is less about what works—or even what truly matters—and more about who gets to rule. Often, non-ideological protests end up fusing with the ruling elite and giving it fresh legitimacy.

Lacking a clear and unifying ideology, the 9/8-9, 2025, protests risk following a similar trajectory. Without a clear socio-political vision, the 9/8-9, 2025, uprising has begun unravelling within two weeks, gradually merging into the existing ABCD (Aryan, Bahun, Chhetri and Dashnami) ethnonational structure. Dressed in mandatory uniform, the all-male additions to the supposedly technocratic cabinet took the oath of office without anyone from Madhesh. Retired Supreme Court Justice Anil Kumar Sinha is presented as a Madheshi face, but he comes from an elite family of legal luminaries with at least three generations of residency in the capital city.

Just recently, Sangeeta Mishra of the Health Ministry was made to resign from her post to accept a ministership. She was dropped from the prime minister’s list after a concerted media campaign against her nomination began in the darkness of night. This episode reveals the extent of humiliation that even a competent professional of her stature must suffer in the new-old ethnonational regime of ABCD supremacism.

From the winter of fear in 2005, the spring of hope in 2006, the monsoon of misery in 2015 to the autumn of despair in 2025, it has been such a long journey for Madheshis looking for a life of dignity in this country.

Dashain greetings to those who are still in the mood to celebrate. May the myth of the triumph of good over evil turn out to be true.