cowardice or tolerance

Where to draw a line regarding these two. We see lot of unrest and terrorist activities around the world. It is due to the intolerance of other 'religion, belief, people of different ethinic background, langauge, color, creed, caste add anything including gender'
This is leaving the people and youth in general confused as to how to react. If you just stop reacting to such things I personally feel that the violence will abate(reduce) as the theory of revenge 'leg for leg, hand for hand and life for life' will end up more people being killed. But what happens when we just don't react, and you end up being coward not standing up to the right cause. won't it encourage the person indulging in violence and increase it.
We in India have lost so much because of tolerance. We are putting up with corrupt politicians and officials, the harassment of local goondas and in the lowest denomination the black mail of auto drivers who either charge you exorbitantly or simply tamper with the meter.
How many of them you can fight every day for situations you keep encoutering in your day to day life. The irresponsible ration officer who thinks what you have is a bogus card simply because you did not draw your ration for few months, or the officer in the medical directorate who happens to be a medical doctor who harrasses you for an internship for your daughter by making you stand there for days on end just to harass you because he knows from your face that you are a brahmin and he thinks he is avenging for what his forefathers underwent under your forefathers. The list continues including the experiences in the Indian Embassies outside India where they treat Indian citizens as s...
Certain cases you are incapable of reacting as you need the work to be done and put up with all the nonsense.(harassment)
Some times you try to fight when you know there is no big stake which will be lost by fighting. (like in the autoriksha case the worst is you might get hit). Many a time you let your anger by shouting after coming home and sometimes there is some big argument among the family members (without understanding) who interestingly are saying the same point but in different ways and all shouting because each one is saying it in his own way. After making a big issue of such incidents we think we have done our share and get on with life without actually taking any action about the actual incident.
Is this Cowardice or is there a forum for common man where he can register his/her protest so that something comes positive about it.
Tolerance when we are on the other shoe this is what we expect. How can we explain a person who works for us at our home minimum 2 hours a day, without taking a single day of leave, we pay her a pittance of 500rs a month. we are paying per hour less than 10rs. We expect her to be tolerant and happy when we give her some of our old clothes and think that we have done a great charity. We expect her to be tolerant when we go past her with our latest cars and when she is walking fast to go to her next stop for 2 more hours of same cleaning and mopping.
But if every one stops becoming tolerant and starts taking law into their hands we will end up in anarchy. So I honestly don't know if we are cowards or tolerant and where to draw the line. So we take each issue at a time and react according to the situation , the importance to us, our mental make up at that time.
If each individual in Power dicides to do something which will make a difference to the common people the situation might improve or am I again passing on the responsibility as I am not in the Power circle.