The new government in Nepal has hit the ground running, taking a bewildering array of decisions in its first week in office, leaving people guessing and gasping. The morning after the country's youngest-ever Prime Minister Balendra Shah (36) was sworn in on 27 March, the government authorised the arrests of former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and former home minister Ramesh Lekhak on charges of criminal negligence amounting to reckless homicide while suppressing the youth uprising of September 2025.

‘You messed with the wrong generation’, read new home minister Sudan Gurung’s cryptic social media post announcing the arrests. On 29 March, authorities arrested another former minister on money laundering charges and initiated investigations of corruption against three former prime ministers, including Oli.

On its second day in office, the government released a 100-point reform agenda. It instructed public and private hospitals to reserve 10 per cent of beds for economically disadvantaged patients with immediate effect and offered jobs at the national power authority to the families of those killed during the protests — an estimated 70.

The government also ordered the abolition of all student unions affiliated with political parties (an odd decision for a Gen Z government) and barred bureaucrats, teachers and other state-affiliated personnel from directly or indirectly engaging with political parties. Political appointees to various boards have been asked to step down voluntarily; if they don’t, the government seems determined to dismiss all 1,200 of them. A Bill has been introduced, proposing private schools be deemed ‘non-profit’ institutions.

Criticism from private schools, the bureaucracy and sections of the public has been overshadowed by the euphoria following the landslide victory of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP), a young party formed in 2022. The idealistic youth who led the protests against the government and succeeded in overthrowing it in six months seems to........

© National Herald