When he is not meeting with Nepal’s new foreign minister Shisir Khanal, to think through policy, Nikhil Sangroula (GU-Q '23) sits at his desk inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, looking out at the dome of the new parliament building across the street. Below, first-time lawmakers move quickly between meetings, with a sense of momentum that feels new. “It is highly spirited in the bureaucratic class,” Sangroula said. “There is a fresh, vibrant energy in the administrative halls. Innovation and partnership are open in an unprecedented manner. I get to speak with young bureaucrats, mostly Gen Z, who are equally hopeful that this leadership will lead them to a better tomorrow. There is no chance, no option, for this government to fail. This is a turning moment for us.” But every time he looks out that window, he remembers September 2025. A government ban on social media set off protests that spread across the country. Streets filled with fires and broken storefronts. In a single day on September 8, state security forces killed 19 young protesters in broad daylight. Then, within hours, former Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli resigned, and Nepal was left without clear leadership. “The state’s failure to manage the situation, and the lives lost, mostly bystanders, was a genuine tragedy,” Sangroula said. “Having lived through it, my hope is simply that Nepal never has to go through anything like it again.” Out of that moment came the youngest governments in the world right now, led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah, at just 36 years old. Three years after graduating from Georgetown University in Qatar (GUQ), Sangroula now works close to its center as a Coordination, Implementation and Monitoring Officer in the Foreign Minister’s Secretariat. He supports the foreign minister’s research and analysis, helps draft speeches, and connects communities and experts with the ministry. A key part of his role is gathering data to support proposed policies.Sangroula grew up far from Kathmandu’s political circles. He was born and raised in Jhapa, in Nepal’s eastern lowlands, where his parents treated education as a necessity. That commitment to learning eventually took him far beyond Nepal’s borders. He went to Doha, where he studied Arabic, majored in international economics and minored in government at GU-Q.“Nepalis have migrated across the globe in search of opportunity, and they demonstrate a genuine acceptance, a willingness to welcome people of every belief without simply tolerating them,” he said. That belief in building bridges shaped his path after graduation. Sangroula joined the Nepal Leadership Academy, where he helped design workshops for emerging political leaders and supported a cross-party caucus focused on collaboration. Some of those same figures now are the members of parliament. Inside the ministry, Sangroula leads its first internship and fellowship program, bringing early-career professionals into public service. He sees a generation less focused on ideology and more focused on results, impatient for better governance, but still learning how the state moves. “The country has a lot more aspiration for efficient public service delivery and stable politics,” he said. “People are looking for swift delivery on outcomes of development. In general, people are not looking for ideology or abstractions. There is strong demand for good governance and economic development.”He does not see youth alone as the answer. What changed, he said, was a growing exhaustion with stagnation. “In my interaction with bureaucrats who have lived through this transition, there is a lot of energy, vitality and proactiveness in the new political class leading the nation today,” he said. “Age is definitely a factor, but even more so were a few octogenarian leaders who had been in power for a long time, and their passivity, which led to discontent for a long time.” For GU-Q students considering public service, his advice: “A lot of people our age want fast, visible change. But every state is inherently conservative in how it moves. If you want change, you need to build consensus and bring people along. The impact of working with government is slower, but it lasts.”
