All through history, assassination has been resorted to by the power-hungry and the aggrieved. It has been used in palace power struggles, as a tool to further a political cause, or to redress a deeply felt grievance.  

It is often the tool of the weaker party to prevail over the stronger one. It is used to shock and awe a particular set of people into submission, to create chaos and bring about the collapse of a despised system in one stroke. It is used in national and international politics  as legitimate policy. In recent times, it has been used as a tool in “transnational repression” by States. Transnational repression refers to knocking off a country’s enemies or dissidents residing abroad.    

However, studies show that the complete efficacy of assassination has not been established. The results are mixed. It succeeds in bringing about the desired changes in some cases and proves to be a dud in others. Sometimes, an assassination results in severe reprisals, grievously injuring the assassin’s cause. 

But irrespective of its questionable record, assassination has been a favoured tool down the ages. The latest application of it has been in the Iran war by Israel. The assassination of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his key lieutenants is a classic example of an assassination that, instead of giving a death blow to Iran, only made it stronger. Instead of collapsing like a house of cards, the Iranian regime got stronger and began giving a fitting reply to the assassins – Israel and the US. The Gulf States suffered collateral damage because they host US bases. 

In the case of the assassinations of Indian leaders Mahatma Gandhi (1948), Indira Gandhi (1984) and Rajiv Gandhi (1991), people rallied around the assassinated leaders rather than the cause upheld by the assassins. Instead of sharpening the Hindu-Muslim divide, Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by a Hindu fanatic strengthened secular India.  Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguards to avenge the storming of the main Sikh shrine at Amritsar resulted in the massacre of  thousands of Sikhs in Delhi and North India. Rajiv Gandhi’s killing by the Tamil Tigers led to the alienation of India from their cause in Sri Lanka, grievously injuring their separatist cause.  

The assassination of Sri Lankan leaders SWRD Bandaranaike,  R. Premadasa, Gamini Dissanayake, Lalith Athulathmudali, Ranjan........

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