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From Kathmandu to Dhaka, South Asia’s cities simmer with youthful frustration—urban policy must include young people or risk crises in the region’s fastest-growing cities.
The recent upheaval in Nepal once again highlights the political volatility generated by youth discontent in South Asia’s cities. In Kathmandu, student-led demonstrations escalated into mass protests culminating in the resignation of the government. This follows earlier movements in Dhaka in 2024, where weeks of student and worker protests paralysed the city and ultimately forced Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina to flee the country. Two years before the Bangladesh episode, Colombo also witnessed one of its most serious urban uprisings in decades, as the Galle Face Green protests contributed directly to the downfall of the Rajapaksa regime.
Most of the commentariat on these events has understandably focused on immediate causes—corruption, inflation, governance failures, and elite impunity. While these are proximate triggers, the more significant story lies in the deeper structural conditions: the youth bulge, limited employment opportunities, and the uneven effects of rapid urbanisation.
Urban youth unemployment is a key global security challenge. United Nations (UN)-Habitat’s State of the Urban Youth Report (2012) noted that young people without access to meaningful employment are more likely than older adults to be drawn into violent or destabilising activities. It also projected that by 2030, over 60 percent of the global urban population would be under the age of 18. Subsequent reports, including the World Cities Report 2022, emphasise that failure to integrate youth into urban economies will undermine social cohesion and stability. A lack of employment opportunities is thus not merely a social challenge; it represents one of the most pressing security concerns of the 21st century.
Half of Sri Lanka’s urban population resides in the Colombo metropolitan region, while one-third of Bangladesh’s urban residents are in Dhaka.
South Asia’s demographic profile underlines this risk. In Nepal, 21 percent of the population is between 15 and 24 years old. In Sri Lanka, the figure is 19 percent, while in Bangladesh it rises to 40 percent. Crucially, these populations are disproportionately concentrated in their countries’ dominant metropolitan regions. Kathmandu Valley houses over 40 percent of Nepal’s urban population. Half of Sri Lanka’s urban population resides in the Colombo metropolitan region, while one-third of Bangladesh’s urban residents are in Dhaka. These are hyper-dominant cities, exercising influence far beyond their size. When unrest takes root, it reverberates on a national scale.
The specific conditions of these capitals magnify grievances. Kathmandu struggles with congestion, inadequate housing infrastructure, and rising living costs. Dhaka combines unsafe working conditions in its industrial districts with inadequate student housing and overstretched services. Colombo’s middle classes saw livelihoods collapse amid shortages of food, fuel, and medicine during the economic crisis.
Urban environments make inequality visible. The juxtaposition of luxury apartments and precarious livelihoods fuels resentment. Dense populations enable mobilisation, while digital platforms allow rapid coordination. Iconic urban spaces—the Singha Durbar, Shahbagh Square, Galle Face Green—become staging grounds where youthful dissent acquires symbolic power. Cities thus serve the function not only as economic engines but also as crucibles of protest.
These dynamics have wider resonance. South Asia is one of the youngest regions in the world, and its cities are expanding at unprecedented rates. The political salience of youth-led urban unrest is unlikely to be confined to Nepal, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka. Instead, these episodes should be seen as early indicators of challenges that other countries in the region, including India, might increasingly face. According to a recent UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) report, youth unrest is spreading from one region to another due to shared concerns about the future. This poses a concern for India.
India, with the world’s largest youth population, has institutional and structural bulwarks. Its size, diversity, federal arrangements, and relatively deeper democratic traditions provide safety valves against regime change through urban protest. Nevertheless, India is not immune to the pressures associated with rapid demographic and urban transformation.
The political salience of youth-led urban unrest is unlikely to be confined to Nepal, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka.
According to UN estimates, India’s urban population is projected to expand by 328 million between 2022 and 2047—an increase larger than the current population of the United States (US). This scale of change has few precedents. At the same time, India has a vast youth cohort. According to the Youth in India 2022 report by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, young people aged 15–29 constituted 27.2 percent of India’s population in 2021. While this share is expected to decline to 22.7 percent by 2036, absolute numbers will remain significant at roughly 345 million. Crucially, a substantial proportion of this youth population will be urban. Therefore, the intersection of rapid urbanisation and a vast, restless youth cohort presents both opportunity and risk: cities could serve as engines of innovation and growth, but without governance mechanisms that respond to young people’s aspirations and frustrations, they could just as easily become arenas of chronic discontent.
Recent events illustrate these vulnerabilities. The candlelight vigils in Kolkata following the rape and murder of a young doctor in August 2024 demonstrated how quickly outrage can mobilise civil society. In Bengaluru, frustrations over traffic gridlock and deteriorating infrastructure are voiced regularly on digital platforms, occasionally spilling over into protests as well. While these episodes have not destabilised governments, they highlight the latent potential for unrest if structural issues remain unresolved.
The lesson from South Asia’s recent upheavals is clear: youth issues cannot be treated as a secondary concern in urban governance. For policymakers, this illuminates three broad priorities.
First, youth-centred urban economic policy. Expanding opportunities beyond precarious informal employment is essential. Young people need structured entry points into green industries, digital economies, and creative sectors. This requires targeted entrepreneurship support, vocational training, and skill development embedded within city planning and development strategies. Youth inclusion must become a mainstream urban policy goal. International experience offers inspiration: Medellín, a city in Colombia, once marked by gang violence, transformed its urban trajectory by deliberately investing in its youth. It built ‘library parks’ and digital innovation hubs in poorer neighbourhoods to connect young people to opportunities. Programmes such as Ruta N (an innovation and entrepreneurship hub) and the Medellín Digital initiative created pathways into tech and creative industries.
A city cannot be considered resilient if it is able to withstand a flood but falters under the censure from its disaffected citizens.
Second, broadening the scope of urban resilience. Current urban policy frameworks in South Asia have tended to emphasise resilience against environmental and climate-related shocks. While crucial, this is not enough. True urban resilience also requires social and political dimensions: reducing inequality, addressing youth unemployment, and preventing civic unrest. A city cannot be considered resilient if it is able to withstand a flood but falters under the censure from its disaffected citizens. Incorporating youth-focused programmes into resilience planning will help ensure cities can withstand not only environmental but also socio-political stresses. Cape Town’s Resilience Strategy, developed under the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative, offers a useful example. By integrating youth unemployment and social vulnerability into its resilience agenda, the city introduced job-readiness training, community safety programmes, and civic participation platforms in poorer neighbourhoods. This broadened approach illustrates how incorporating youth-focused initiatives into resilience planning can help ensure cities withstand not only environmental shocks but also socio-political stresses.
Third, political inclusion. International experience shows that participatory urban governance fosters legitimacy and reduces alienation. Governments must create meaningful channels for young people to participate in decision-making—not only through elections but also in everyday governance. This can be achieved by encouraging urban local bodies to establish ‘Ward Committees’ and making provisions for youth inclusion. Ward Committees are neighbourhood assemblies established under municipal governments, and chaired by local ward councillors to enable better citizen engagement. They allow residents of a ward to deliberate on issues, set priorities, and hold their representatives accountable. Provisions for setting up such fourth-tier governance entities—especially in cities with a population above three lakh—exist under Article 243S of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act (1992), as well as the municipal acts of several states. However, this has not been implemented yet at a national scale, except in Kerala, Bengaluru, and partially in Chennai, where a single Committee serves several Wards. This certainly warrants change. Instead of being run in a top-down manner, properly functional Ward Committees can become effective platforms for urban youth to upscale their engagement in day-to-day city governance and reduce alienation.
Disaffected youth are not a marginal constituency; they represent a central challenge for governance, stability, and development.
The cases of Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Colombo demonstrate how quickly youth disaffection in urban centres can escalate into national political crises. While contexts vary, the underlying structural pattern is consistent: large youth cohorts, limited opportunities, and concentrated urban dominance combine to produce volatility.
For policymakers, both in South Asia and globally, the warning is stark. Disaffected youth are not a marginal constituency; they represent a central challenge for governance, stability, and development. Cities must be seen not only as engines of economic growth but also as sites where social contracts are continuously tested. Unless governments integrate youth into their economic and political futures, the much-touted demographic dividend risks turning into a demographic disaster.
Tathagata Chatterji is a Professor in Urban Management and Governance at XIM University, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.
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Tathagata Chatterji is Professor of Urban Management and Governance at XIM (formerly Xavier Institute of Management), Bhubaneswar, India. His research interests are urban economic development ...
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