Nepal, March 28 -- Six months after smoke filled Kathmandu's streets and a government fell within 30 hours of a deadly Gen Z-led protest in the capital, Nepal appears calmer. The barricades are gone, and the streets are quieter. Former Kathmandu mayor Balen Shah was sworn in as the country's new Prime Minister on Friday, amid significant fanfare, having ridden the wave and spirit of the Gen Z movement. But little about Nepal's politics feels resolved.

The immediate crisis has passed. A newly elected government is in place, and institutions are functioning again. Yet the forces that drove thousands of young people into the streets have not gone away. If anything, they have settled beneath the surface. The question now is not what happened...