By Lt Gen A B Shivane, PVSM, AVSM, VSM (Retd)  Courtesy The Week

The upheavals across Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal may not be isolated incidents but part of a larger “regional rhythm of a Tsunami” in South Asia

Protesters celebrate at the parliament building after it was set on fire during a protest against social media ban and corruption in Kathmandu, Nepal | AP

South Asia is once again in the eye of the storm. What we are witnessing is not a collection of separate crises but a regional rhythm of a Tsunami. The past few years have produced strikingly similar upheavals. In Sri Lanka, the economic collapse of 2022 brought citizens onto the streets in fury, chasing the once invincible Rajapaksa clan from power. In Bangladesh, the 2024 student-led revolt against discriminatory job quotas snowballed into a nationwide uprising against Sheikh Hasina’s long dominance, ending with her exit from Dhaka. In Nepal, the riots of 2025 began with a social media ban but quickly spiralled into a revolt against corruption, privilege, and Chinese-leaning governance, forcing Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli to resign. Corruption, arrogance, and dynastic privilege have created the conditions. The energy of the young has supplied the spark. And in the shadows, the competing toolkits of Washington and Beijing have ensured that no uprising remains entirely domestic. Each country carries its own cracks. A detailed analysis connects the dots.

Sri Lanka showed the first tremor. The Rajapaksas built their dominance on wartime victory and family control. By 2022, they were undone by empty fuel stations, runaway inflation, and an economy wrecked by debt. People who had never imagined storming state buildings did exactly that. For many, it was not politics but survival: how to cook, how to find medicine, how to keep children in school. The collapse exposed the scale of Chinese lending that had trapped the island, forced India to scramble with credit lines and fuel, and gave Washington a chance to call out Beijing’s ambitions in the Indian Ocean. The slogans on the streets, however, were simpler. They were about anger at theft, rage at privilege, and the right to live with dignity.

Bangladesh followed two years later. Student protests over unfair job quotas seemed at first a contained issue. Within weeks, it had become a full-scale rejection of Sheikh Hasina’s long rule. The state answered with bullets. Over a thousand were killed. Yet the violence did not frighten the young into silence. It deepened their determination and turned the movement into a national revolt. Hasina’s tilt towards China had already irritated Washington, and many in Dhaka saw signs of American encouragement. NGOs and activist networks with external links played their part. India, meanwhile, was caught in an awkward position. For New Delhi, Hasina had been a known acquaintance, a partner it could work with despite her Chinese connections. Her fall left uncertainty on India’s eastern frontier and the prospect of instability spilling across a long and porous border.

Nepal’s storm came in 2025. The trigger was almost absurd in its pettiness: a government order to block Western social media platforms while sparing Chinese ones. To a generation that lives, trades, and earns online, this was an assault on survival. Within hours, it became something much larger. The slogan against nepo kids captured the mood of a country tired of elites who monopolised every opportunity. The state chose repression. Nineteen people were killed, hundreds were injured, but the pressure broke Oli’s government. Here, too, suspicion of outside influence spread quickly. Washington had no patience for Oli’s tilt to Beijing, while China bristled at every American-funded project in Kathmandu. For the United States, Nepal has become part of its anti-China and South Asian footprint calculus. The Millennium Challenge Corporation and broader development aid provided Washington with a foothold in South Asia at a time when Chinese influence was expanding rapidly. US-backed NGOs like ‘Hami Nepal’ gave channelised momentum to the protests. For the youth in Nepal, it was a revolt for dignity. For rival powers, it was another round of their contest.

Placing these three upheavals tells us something more serious. The triggers may differ, but the structure is the same. Weak institutions, corruption without consequence, dynastic capture of politics, and a generation that refuses to remain silent. What makes the moment different from earlier decades is the centrality of youth. They are not marching under old banners of ideology or monarchy. They are marching with smartphones in hand, mobilising through hashtags, demanding jobs and fairness. This is both the region’s strength and its danger. When engaged, they are the source of renewal. When excluded, they become combustible.

Big powers understand this better than local elites. That is why American aid programmes, scholarships, and US-funded NGOs are not just altruism but instruments. That is why Beijing ties infrastructure, loans, and digital platforms to its strategy. Each sees South Asia’s young generation as a constituency to capture. The result is that every domestic protest quickly becomes entangled with outside rivalry. Sri Lanka’s debt became a story of Chinese ports. Bangladesh’s revolt was read as Washington’s pushback. Nepal’s riots were described as the new fault line of the great power rivalry. The region’s citizens want dignity. The outside powers want leverage.

India’s position is the hardest of all. It cannot escape the consequences of unrest around it. Sri Lanka lies across vital sea lanes. Bangladesh shares rivers, borders, and migration flows. Nepal is bound to India by geography and culture. Instability in any of these places reaches India’s own doorstep. Yet heavy-handedness brings its own costs. Past interventions in Nepal and Sri Lanka have left scars. Nationalist politics thrives on suspicion of Indian overreach. New Delhi must remain engaged, but it must not smother. It has to speak to the aspirations of South Asia’s young directly through education, connectivity, and start-up opportunities, while also acting as a steady partner in crises.

Also read

• Why ‘Gen Z’ protesters of Nepal want Sushika Karki as the head of interim government
• Darkest chapter in modern Nepal? With breakdown of law and order, governance, public security, the nation faces uncertainty
• India blocks Nepalis at border amid escaped prisoner fears: Report
• Indian tourist stranded in Nepal asks for help as ‘mob torched hotel’: Nepal Army orders curfew as ‘unruly groups infiltrate protests’

The deeper question is whether these upheavals represent the painful birth of more accountable democracies or whether they mark the beginning of cycles of revolt and repression. The Rajapaksas are gone, but Sri Lanka’s finances remain fragile. Hasina has fallen, but Dhaka is unsettled. Oli resigned, but Nepal’s politics remains paralysed. The societies remain fragile unless faultlines of corruption, demographic change, exclusion and unemployment are not addressed, and nations transition to healthier democracies with little space for external powers to exploit faultlines for their vested agenda. But if despair hardens further, the region may move beyond protest into radicalisation. South Asia has lived through insurgencies before. There is no guarantee it will not happen again.

What we see today is a region at an inflexion point. Youthful energy can drive reform if leaders listen, or it can turn destructive if ignored. External actors can choose to stabilise or continue to exploit fragility. India can be either resented as overbearing or respected as a partner, depending on how it plays its hand. The storm over South Asia has already toppled leaders who thought themselves unassailable. Whether it now clears into renewal or sinks into cycles of unrest will depend on choices made in the years ahead. Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal show that the storm clouds are not lifting. The next flashpoint in South Asia may be only a spark away.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.