 Elections in Jammu and Kashmir are, like in any other part of India, colourful, crowded and noisy. While campaigning is serious business for nearly everybody. For some, it is an amusing diversion which ensures them a captive audience and a place under the sun. However, fleeting it may be. As campaigning gathers momentum, corner meetings become an arena to settle old scores. Crowds vociferously take sides, loudly supporting their own candidates while booing the opponents. Some, however, just listen quietly. Women, children, men, young and old. Elections to the largest democracy in the world are quite literally for everybody. Any space which allows a ringside view of the candidates and their supporters' antics of this great Indian Tamasha is readily occupied. Comfort and security, for the moment, seem of little importance. But unfortunately, during these elections and also during those in the recent past, candidates were not the only ones trying to attract attention. This joyous celebration of democracy is seen perhaps as the ultimate threat. Depraved minds act ruthlessly to strike at its very roots by attempting to destroy people's participation and terrorize them into silence. Where just moments earlier, sounds of slogans and cheerful bantering had filled the air, sirens, whales and moans rented now. Mamed bodies and numb minds, vacant eyes of innocence, wonder why they are being terrorized on their own soil. And that too by outsiders, who know nothing of their democratic traditions and respect them even less. Their silent tears of anguish, however, remain inadequate to wash away the color of blood. Still, they refuse to be calmed down or to be silenced by fear. They come, defying all threats in large numbers. Standing in long queues for hours, waiting patiently to cast their votes for their belief in democracy. Like in any other part of the country, each one has their own reasons to vote. But common to all is the belief that their votes can decide their future. That's why they come to vote. They come to vote because they have the desire to achieve our future. They come to vote because they have the desire to achieve our future. We have come here because we have been seeing this for the past 12 years, and nothing else. That's why they have come to vote. For ultimately, terror can achieve only so much. Innocence can be brutalized for only so long, till fear steps into fearlessness. For when the silent majority decides with dignity to right wrongs, weapons of terror can achieve only so much.