Why political leaders' motorcades can spark rage and protests

The coverage of Nepal’s recent upheavals has focused on “nepo kids”. Widespread viewing of their lifestyles on social media played a big role in building up the resentments that led to the explosion.

But the actual match was lit by an incident on September 6 when an official government jeep carrying a provincial minister hit an 11-year-old girl in Lalitpur.
CCTV footage showed the girl thrown on the road and the jeep speeding off. The dark, blocky, almost menacing vehicle seemed to symbolise how politicians cut themselves off from regular citizens. This was compounded when the then prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, dismissed it as a “normal accident” and only said the girl’s medical costs would be covered.

Before the social media clampdown, the images spread, reminding people of the many times such cars had sped past them, potent reminders of an arrogant and unaccountable political class.