Published : Sep 10, 2025 19:35 IST - 6 MINS READDear reader,This morning Frontline hosted a webinar on Nepal’s “GenZ Uprising”. Nepal’s protesters, like that elder man, grasp democracy’s essential truth: inequalities and anomalies can only be challenged in free societies. The Yale historian Timothy Snyder reminds us in On Tyranny that Europe’s young democracies actually collapsed into fascism within two decades of birth. The ECI, like other institutions, is meant to be democracy’s safety valve, checking the slide into authoritarianism or anarchy. I’d like to believe Nepal’s young protesters, who forced Oli’s resignation, already understand this.