Nepal: Colour Revolution in the Himalayas

20-09-2025: In the first week of September, violence erupted across the Himalayan nation of Nepal, which led to the parliament being stormed and set ablaze, as were the homes of senior officials, with the finance minister being stripped and thrown into a river. At least 19 people died during clashes with police and security forces,[1] and the Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli felt he had little option but to resign in an effort to stem further riots. Ostensibly, the chaos was the result of alleged government corruption and the attempt to ban certain social media apps used across the country, which supposedly enraged young people (Generation Z or Gen Z) who took to the streets to vent their frustrations. Much of the Western media retailed this narrative repeatedly and it was echoed by casual observers.

Covert imperial subterfuge

The problem with the corporate media narrative is that all but the most naïve can see the increasingly open hand of US imperialism at work, even if the subterfuge is conducted covertly. When one observes placards and banners in the English language, in a country where the main languages are Nepali, Maithili and Bhojpuri,[2] alarm bells should start ringing. More so when the banners and placards appear pre-printed, rather than hand made by activists on the ground. The placards and banners in English are of course meant to be legible for liberals in the West, to gain their sympathy and support for what is in practice a fairly standard US and EU (European Union) colour revolution. As if to underscore who was behind the regime change operation in Nepal, EU Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas posted on social media welcoming the new Prime Minister of the interim government of Nepal, Sushila Karki.[3] Kallas did not of course mention the death and destruction which preceded this “appointment”.

Brian Berletic of The New Atlas is arguably the world’s foremost analyst on colour revolutions and regime change operations conducted by US imperialism, and again he has uncovered a section of what would be mountains of evidence confirming the role of the states currently based in Washington, London and Brussels. He explains that it is wholly implausible that, within 5 days, Gen Z youths in Nepal were able to take down the government of a state of around 30 million people on their own. To overthrow a government, the resources of a state or states of an equal or more powerful state or states are required before this could even be contemplated.[4] The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the US government funded regime change arm of the CIA, by its own admission has spent at least $2 million in Nepal just in the last 18 months on so-called civil society organisations to “promote and protect Dalit rights” and “empower youth civic engagement”.[5] With eager and unsuspecting youths on the ground, the “civic engagement” they were ultimately used for is dangerous chaos.

Social media “ban”

If one is wondering how imperialism would be able to choreograph the violent overthrow of a nation where it has no military “boots on the ground”, consider the extent of Western corporate funding for the attempt by the Nepalese government to simply regulate Western and other social media apps operating within the country – ironically to avoid being overthrown. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) launched an international campaign to withdraw its social media bill because, of course, it supposedly undermines “press freedom”. Yet the CPJ is funded by the Open Society Foundation (OSF of billionaire anti-socialist regime change king maker George Soros), the Ford Foundation, News Corporation, Fox News, Newsweek, New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, ABC News, CNN, AT & T, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs – and Google, Meta and Microsoft.[6] Dripping with hypocrisy, the Western corporation funded CPJ even claimed that the Nepalese government’s social media bill would breach freedom of expression provisions in the constitution.[7]

It gets worse. The Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) is actually funded by the National Democratic Institute – a subsidiary of the NED.[8] The NED even created the Localization Lab, a body specifically designed to get around “technical challenges and restrictions”, i.e., governments who suspected what the NED was organising behind the scenes against them.[9] The ex-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, even created the Bitchat Bluetooth messaging app which became widespread in Nepal,[10] to get around an internet shutdown during their regime change operation. Nury Vittachi highlighted the fact that Nepal actually wanted an internet space like the neighbouring People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has developed its own internet alternatives to Google, Facebook, YouTube and virtually everything online – so it does not have to rely on Western Big Tech with its alarming potential for political subversion.[11]

Nepal was taking only the first steps towards the regulation of Western Big Tech, by ordering social media to register with the government, and naming a local contact for grievance handling and self-regulation. Tik Tok and Viber agreed and complied, but Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, Snapchat and others refused, and were thus blocked.[12] So the story of a “social media ban” in Nepal is twisted and distorted. Many refused what were very reasonable requests to remain operating within a state, and the resulting “outrage” was carefully cultivated by a myriad of Western backed “Non” Government Organisations (NGOs) who have been planted within Nepali society for decades prior.

Hami Nepal, for example, admitted that it organised some of the protests, but disingenuously claims that the protests were hijacked by violent elements.[13] As if it would not have known what the plan was! The concept that the CIA attempts to hijack protests and movements organised by genuine people in order to turn them to their advantage is perhaps possible, but a violent colour revolution is nothing which can remotely have a progressive agenda. The unfortunate fact is that US taxpayer dollars are being laundered through US bodies such as the US Agency for International Development (now “dismantled” but not disappeared with the Trump Administration’s funding cuts), and carried out by chosen “consultants” such as Deloitte and NGO partners like the Soros funded Niti Foundation.[14] One angle they used in Nepal to entice youth to enact violent acts they would otherwise never consider was the “Nepo Kids” (Nepotism Kids) – the sons and daughters of Nepali officials flaunting their lavish lifestyles while the majority scrape by. As if the sons and daughters of the elite in the West do not live much more decadent lifestyles!

Regional geopolitics

It does not take a sleuth to work out why Nepal was targeted for regime change by Washington. Nepal sits directly between China and India, and both of these giant nations have recently begun a rapprochement[15] in the wake of 50% tariffs slapped on India by the Trump Administration, in an attempt to drive India away from both China and Russia. As is usually the case, pressure from the US government results in the opposite effect. Nepal is also a dialogue partner[16] of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the Eurasian security bloc which just had its most successful Summit in Tianjin, following the celebrations in Beijing marking 80 years since the defeat of Japanese imperialism in World War II. At the SCO Summit, plans for an SCO Development bank were announced, as well as the joining of the Laos People’s Democratic Republic (LPDR) as a dialogue partner. The SCO contains 10 member states, 2 observer states and 14 dialogue partners.[17] It encompasses basically the whole of Eurasia, plus the South East Asian nations of Cambodia, Myanmar and now Laos.

The SCO and the non-imperialist BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa plus 15 other nations) bloc are the ever rising pillars of multipolarity, which US/EU imperialism is desperate to derail, but is virtually powerless to stop. Hence the repeated dangers of Western sponsored regime change operations in states surrounding India, China, Russia and Iran. Washington perhaps shocked India when it carried out another violent regime change operation in Bangladesh last year,[18] and its overthrow of Nepal today is yet another stark warning to Delhi. Yet the ruling class in India is slowly but surely learning the capitalist West is in a downwards death spiral, and the rational course of action would be to forge stronger ties with the SCO, BRICS and Eurasia.

Recognising imperialism on the rampage with multiple colour revolutions is important, but not enough on its own. Workers internationally have the task of defending nations of the Global South against internal and external imperialist backed regime change operations, while forging towards socialism via a tactical orientation towards multipolarity and its SCO/BRICS/Eurasian anchors. The rising East is underpinned by the gargantuan power of Red China, but real and authentic Marxist leadership (i.e. Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard parties) must be established in Eurasia and the West to help lead the masses in building a new world that has no need for chaos, violence and war.

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[1] www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/8/six-killed-in-nepal-amid-gen-z-protests-after-social-media-ban-all-to-know (17-09-2025)

[2] www.theflags.org/what-are-the-top-3-languages-spoken-in-nepal/ (17-09-2025)

[3] www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=122227195784162308&set=a.122099345186162308 (17-09-2025)

[4] www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgZXwXIVZTk (17-09-2025)

[5] www.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Asia-Grant-Listing-FY24.pdf (17-09-2025)

[6] www.x.com/BrianJBerletic/status/1967017492360163705 (17-09-2025)

[7] www.cpj.org/2025/02/cpj-nepal-lawmakers-should-reject-social-media-bill-threatening-press-freedom/ (17-09-2025)

[8] www.fnjnepal.org/uploads/resources/resource_1604827301.pdf (17-09-2025)

[9] www.ned.org/ned-partner-connects-activists-with-critical-digital-tools-in-local-languages/ (17-09-2025)