Discuss how the global wave of 'Gen Z protests' (2024–26) reflects both common and divergent socio-political grievances across South and Southeast Asian democracies.

Between 2024 and 2026, youth-led "Gen Z protests" travelled from Bangladesh and Nepal to Indonesia, the Philippines, the Maldives and India. They share a common grammar of dissent, yet their underlying grievances are far from identical.

Common grievances

• Anti-corruption and transparency: Nepal's September 2025 protests demanded transparent governance, equal opportunity and an end to corruption, and culminated in the ousting of the government and an interim administration [1].
• Blocked economic mobility: protest energy draws on a decent-work deficit — youth are about three times likelier than adults to be unemployed, and the demographic dividend is contingent on skilling and job creation, not automatic [3].
• Shrinking civic and digital space: Nepal's immediate trigger was a social-media ban [1], while Bangladesh's 2024 crackdown on student protesters caused mass casualties and arbitrary detentions [2].
• Shared repertoire: leaderless, social-media-driven mobilisation allows protest symbols and tactics to diffuse rapidly across borders.

Divergent grievances

• Distinct triggers: Bangladesh's uprising began over public-employment quota reservation and hardened into a movement against authoritarian entrenchment and inequality [2]; Nepal's centred on elite corruption and censorship [1].
• Regime context: demands scale to the political system — regime change where accountability channels had collapsed, but policy correction within stable electoral democracies.
• Not uniformly anti-incumbent: in India, post-poll survey analysis of the 2024 Lok Sabha election shows young voters did not behave as a single anti-establishment bloc [4]; earlier mass mobilisations such as the anti-CAA and farmer protests were led largely by older generations.
• Divergent outcomes: governments fell in Bangladesh and Nepal, while elsewhere protest remained largely within institutional channels.

The wave therefore reflects a shared governance-delivery deficit rather than one generational ideology; its differences track each country's institutional health. Treating a cohort this large as monolithic risks misreading it. Institutionalising youth voice through participatory governance, employment and skilling — advancing SDG 8 and SDG 16 — would convert episodic protest into durable democratic strength.