For decades, our rulers have vied with each other for making the life of the masses more and more miserable. They have achieved their ideal. Today, we are one of the most miserable nations of the world. For this, we are indebted to our rulers. Some people are wondering why the rulers have taken so long for bringing the masses to their present plight. The wondering people should know that Rome was not built in a day. Most of the heads in a society are empty heads. Democracy passionately loves such heads. An empty head is a godsend for democracy. It is always longing to be ordered about. A head packed with brains is a very dangerous head. Democracy is mortally scared of such a head. Socrates greatest misfortune was that he had a wisdom-packed head. His head cost him his life. Had he been endowed by nature with a common lousy head, his end would not have been so tragic. Democracy killed him. Democracy is a game of numbers. It fanatically believes that two heads are better than one head. If two heads are better than one head, then logically two prime ministers must be better than one prime minister and two presidents must be better than one president. Thus, democracy advises us to have two presidents and two prime ministers at the same time. There should be no harm in experimenting with the advice. Maybe, two presidents and two prime ministers working jointly give us better results than what one president and one prime minister working jointly have given us in the past. The Western democracy is a product of Western affluence. The affluence itself is a product of Western industrialisation. Had the industrialisation not flooded the West with prosperity, the contemporary Western democracy would never have come into being. Thus, the credit for the Western democracy goes entirely to the Western industrialisation. Dazzled by the Western democracy, we have come to believe that the Western affluence is a product of Western democracy and that by democratising ourselves we can 'affluencise ourselves. The belief is a mammoth self-deception. Democracy never gives birth to prosperity. Only prosperity gives birth to genuine democracy. Poverty can give birth only to a bastard democracy. The democracies of the backward countries are irrefutable proof of this fact. All the robbers of the world collectively cannot rob what in a poor country democracy can legally rob. Of all the vandalistic forms of government, democracy in poor country is the most vandalistic. Democracy in a poor country is a philosophers stone for the professional politician, but a millstone round the common mans neck. Democracy in a backward country is a concubine of the moneyed class. Pakistan is a poor country. Elections in Pakistan are hornifica1ly costly. Logically, the masses must keep themselves away from such elections. But they dont do so. There is a reason. The masses have become so much addicted to their misery that they cannot live without becoming more and more miserable. Their misery is their only asset. As human beings naturally desire to increase their assets, so our miserable masses desire to increase their only asset which is misery. And this they cannot do without sending the members of the moneyed class into Parliament. The elected rich do not disappoint their poor electors. They generously add to the misery of their electors. Our masses achieve their ambition of becoming poorer than the church mouse through the national democracy. Our elections are a very expensive affair. Only extremely rich Pakistanis can afford to jump into the election fray. He who is financially impotent is ineligible for the election bout. His voting right is a mockery of the ballot box. When an illiterate voter affixes his thumb impression on the ballot paper and drops it into the ballot box, his misery for the next five years is guaranteed. The poor voters way to hell is paved with the ballot box. In a poor country, nothing can ensure the general misery like democracy. We have various administrative systems. Unfortunately, all these systems are generally dishonest systems. These systems are the creation of our political system. The political system of a country is the mother of all other systems. If the mother-system is corrupt, it cannot give birth to honest systems. If we want to get rid of our dishonest systems, we must hang the mother, i.e. we must hang our democracy. The writer retired as professor of the Department of English, Government College University, Lahore.