Asia

• Authored by: Rishabh Madhavendra Pratap
• Updated Dec 27, 2025, 23:57 IST

Targeted political violence often aims to eliminate influential figures but typically has the opposite effect, transforming individuals into symbols that galvanize movements.

Political assassination can be less a tool of strategy than a trap. (Image: Representative/AI generated)

Photo : Times Now

Across regions and political systems, the logic behind targeted political violence often rests on a simple assumption: remove the individual, weaken the movement. Yet history repeatedly shows the opposite outcome. Political killings rarely close conflicts. More often, they widen them—transforming contested figures into uncontested symbols and tactical problems into long-term narrative liabilities.

Bangladesh is currently navigating a sensitive phase triggered by the death of Sharif Osman Hadi, a prominent leader of Bangladesh’s 2024 student-led uprising. A spokesperson for Inquilab Mancha and a key figure in last year’s uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s government, he was shot by masked men in Dhaka and later died of his injuries in Singapore.

At this critical moment, political trust is uneven. Institutions are under strain. Public emotions are sharp. In this context the paradox is not new. But in an age of instant communication and polarised information spaces, its effects are sharper than ever. At the heart of this dynamic lies the symbolic power of death. Living political actors are flawed, inconsistent, and negotiable. They can be criticised, divided, co-opted, or sidelined. Dead figures cannot. Once killed, individuals are stripped of contradiction and frozen into a simplified moral frame. Their ideas become easier to mobilise precisely because they are no longer burdened by reality.

This is why death carries political weight disproportionate to the individual’s actual influence while alive. A living leader must persuade. A martyr merely needs to be remembered. Martyrdom functions as a force multiplier. It condenses emotion, grievance, and identity into a single narrative object. Supporters no longer argue policy; they defend memory. Opponents lose the ability to engage because any critique risks appearing as desecration rather than disagreement. The space for compromise narrows, often permanently.

Crucially, this effect is strongest during periods of political transition or instability. When institutions are under strain and legitimacy is contested, symbolic events travel faster than procedural outcomes. Violence becomes a shortcut to attention, and death becomes a rallying point around which diffuse frustrations can cohere.

The modern information environment amplifies this dynamic. Political violence today is not merely an act; it is a communication event. Images circulate before facts are established. Narratives harden before investigations begin. Competing claims flood the public sphere, crowding out nuance and rewarding the most emotionally resonant version of events.

In such conditions, control over interpretation is quickly lost. Even actors who believe they can manage escalation often discover that the story has escaped them. Once violence enters the symbolic register, it no longer obeys strategic intent.

This is precisely why martyr creation is often more useful to radical movements and violent spoilers than to actors seeking concrete outcomes. For those invested in perpetual mobilisation rather than resolution, martyrdom is a renewable resource. It sustains grievance, justifies escalation, and locks conflicts into moral absolutes that resist settlement.

In this sense, political assassination can be less a tool of strategy than a trap. It hardens identities, delegitimises moderates, and shifts disputes from negotiable interests to existential claims. The result is not control, but entrenchment.

The assumption that removing individuals removes influence also misunderstands how political movements adapt. Organisations decentralise. Leaders are replaced. Narratives evolve. In some cases, movements become more resilient precisely because leadership becomes symbolic rather than operational. The absence of a single negotiator complicates de-escalation and fragments responsibility, making resolution harder rather than easier.

For states and institutions that prioritise stability, political violence is generally avoided rather than embraced. The costs are not limited to moral condemnation. Attribution is rarely clean, and even unproven allegations can carry diplomatic and reputational consequences. Escalation risks multiply, while plausible deniability erodes quickly amid public anger.

More importantly, violence tends to discredit institutional processes at the moment they are most needed. Investigations, courts, elections, and reforms lose legitimacy when politics shifts from contestation to martyrdom. Once a cause becomes sanctified by blood, procedural outcomes struggle to regain authority.

None of this suggests that violence is accidental or irrational. On the contrary, it is often strategically attractive to actors who benefit from disorder. But that attraction is precisely the warning sign. Violence that creates martyrs rarely resolves conflicts; it preserves them.

The lesson is straightforward. Political violence does not silence ideas. It simplifies and amplifies them. It replaces debate with symbolism and negotiation with memory. In doing so, it strengthens the very narratives it seeks to suppress. For those serious about stability, the restraint to avoid creating martyrs is not weakness. It is a strategy.

Rishabh Madhavendra Pratap author

Rishabh Madhavendra Pratap is Principal Correspondent for diplomatic, foreign and defence developments at Times Network. With special interest in soci... View More

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