“The King is dead, long live the King!” is a phrase we come across at times, often at places where it appears a bit out of context. However, the seemingly contradictory sentences make it a memorable phrase. In several nations worldwide, this proclamation is made following the accession of a new monarch. This phrase does two things at one go. It announces the death of a monarch and also asserts timeless continuity by hailing the new monarch.
The United Nations (UN) is now a well known organisation, having worked worldwide for almost 80 years. In its earlier version, it was called the League of Nations, and a speaker at its final session ended his speech with a declaration: “The League is dead. Long live the United Nations.” This announcement was meant to convey to the world that League of Nations was dead, but its place had been taken by the United Nations. The continuum of structures, organisations, trusts, and governments is thus often conveyed through the use of a phrase in which the words dead and live appear together.
The original phrase was a translation of a French expression: Le roi est mort, vive le roi! The phrase arose from the law of le mort saisit le vif, which means that the transfer of sovereignty occurs instantaneously upon the moment of death of a monarch. In essence, it conveys the expression that the throne is never vacant.
This, however, cannot be said in the context of SAARC, once upon a time a vibrant regional organisation working actively in South Asia. Say SAARC among a group of educated people today and ask them to expand this acronym. It is possible that very few will be able to correctly spell that out as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Why is SAARC being discussed now?
Well, barely a week ago, Secretary General of SAARC Mohammad Golam Sarwar (of Bangladesh) was in Delhi on an official visit (May 11 to 15). The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) released a statement regarding his visit and most newspapers and TV channels ignored it altogether. A decade earlier, such a visit used to attract reporters in hordes, as this was often a signal for something big about to happen.
Usually, such visits were precursors to SAARC summits, attended by top political executive heads of the government. But no SAARC summit has happened since 2016, when it was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November that year. On September 18, 2016, terrorists sponsored by Pakistan attacked a military camp at Uri (Baramullah) in which 19 jawans of the Indian Army attained martyrdom. At least 30 others were injured in that attack which led to Surgical Strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control (LoC).
Bharat decided to boycott Islamabad SAARC summit and some other members like Nepal, Sri Lanka followed suit. Since then, different organs of SAARC have atrophied, losing their relevance one after another with no revival in sight. Bharat’s disinterest in things pertaining to SAARC has rendered it defunct, as good as dead. The MEA statement released on May 15 said that Secretary General of SAARC paid an “official visit to India and interacted with authorities’’. During the visit, the Secretary General was hosted for a working lunch by Jaideep Majumdar, Secretary (East).
In the past, any SAARC Secretary General visiting India would mean being hosted by the Minister for External Affairs. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar remained external to all meetings for four days Sarwar was in India. That perhaps says a lot more than the official statement and tells us that maybe SAARC is dead.
