After an explosion of popular rage tore through the country, its respected army was the only institution left standing. It’s now in talks with the protesters.

When protesters in Nepal torched Parliament, the Supreme Court and the homes of five former prime ministers on Tuesday, no one seemed to be in charge of a country in anarchy. Then, that night, Gen. Ashok Raj Sigdel, the chief of the Nepali Army, appeared in a short video, urging calm in the streets.

His soldiers took control at 10 p.m., and violent protests in the capital, Kathmandu, had begun to fizzle. That same night, army officers were sitting down with the young and little-known leaders of the self-declared Gen Z protest movement to hash out a plan for peace.