Blade Runner

You can't better Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's audacity in effecting U-turns: he ditched the Taliban, joined the war on terror, ruled out plebiscite as a solution to the Kashmir imbroglio. And now, in a remarkable display of chutzpah, the Musharraf administration has issued a directive asking army officials and jawans to take prior permission for growing a beard. Or for that matter, for shaving it off. The direction has been construed in army circles as yet another move to appease the secular, ungodly West—and heap scorn on the devout.

It may have been the Prophet's wish to see his men in flowing beards, but now you need a commander's nod if you are a soldier. According to senior sources, the attorney general's office of the General HQ has circulated a confidential letter signed by a brigadier, saying the rule to seek permission to keep a beard, which was waived way back in 1977, has been revived. The letter claims the '77 waiver has been identified as the principal cause behind several cases of impersonation to plague the army. It then adds, "For having a foolproof system of identification in the prevailing environment, explicit permission of superior officers will be mandatory for keeping/shaving off the beard. Upon permission to grow a beard, the concerned officers' record will be published and all identification documents will include latest photographs of the army men showing the beard." The letter concludes, "Commanders at all echelons of the army must ensure compliance, please."

In Musharraf's Pakistan, the apparent is rarely ever the story: just about nobody here thinks impersonation is the real issue. Lt Gen (retd) Hameed Gul, a former chief of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), thinks the directive's real purpose is to please the West, and counter the growing number of Islamists in the army. "The letter is one such effort which is a direct offence on Islamic-minded officers, who are in abundance. They are already being denied high-ranking promotions because of their religious beliefs." The beard has incurred Musharraf's wrath because most of those recently court-martialled for conspiring against him were practicing Muslims, says Gul. Just about all of them sported the beard. "Musharraf actually wants to give a message to the western leaders, particularly President George Bush, that they and he both have the same enemies," he adds.

Former squadron leader Khalid Khawaja, who too had an association with the ISI, feels the new directive harks back to the British colonial era. "They introduced the condition of permission in the subcontinent," he says. But even then, a soldier was required to take permission for growing the beard, not for shaving it off. Khwaja says it is ironical that Pakistan's soldiers should seek permission for following the Prophet.

The politics of beard has a chequered history in Pakistan. Former army chief Gen Mirza Aslam Beg says before Gen Zia-ul-Haq dismissed the Bhutto government, it was mandatory for soldiers to be clean-shaven and special permission was required from a commander to grow the beard. "However, Zia waived the need to seek permission." It was under Zia the Pakistan army began recruiting officers and soldiers from the educated rural classes with strong leanings towards conservative Islam. These officers today constitute the backbone of the Pakistan army. No wonder, the army motto continues to be: 'Jehad in the name of God'.

Cosmetic measures disallowing the beard can scarcely secularise the army; it demands a more concerted, well thought out approach. Gul feels it's inevitable for Pakistan to go through its own version of Islamic revolution. "Because everything else in this country has failed, Islam will have to lead the way," he says, adding that Islamist soldiers, with or without the beard, will "offer little resistance against it. "