People’s tolerance has its limits. In a village 70 kms from Akola (in the Vidarbha region) the villagers hacked to death a notorious moneylender and his henchman in a display of spontaneous anger. In 1997 two brothers, Anadrao and Ganpatrao Thakre, of Pimpalgao Chambhar village had mortgaged his 13 acre land to moneylender Yogiraj Donade for a Rs.1 lakh loan at a monthly interest of 5%. Over this past decade he has returned roughly Rs.1.4 laks to the moneylender; yet he was not prepared to return the land to the Thakre brothers. He took a loan from the bank of Rs.4.5 lakhs and was willing to use this as well to pay off the moneylender. All these discussions took place before the police. The Shiv Sena MLA of the area also intervened. All indirectly backed the powerful moneylender. Finally one day when two of Thakre’s sons went to the land the hoodlums of the moneylender beat them so badly that they had to be hospitalized for over a month. Seeing this, the entire village gathered and beat Donade and his henchman Pramaod Chambhar to death with lathis, axes and rods on May 20 2006. When the court sought to take action on the villagers over 1,000 villagers from the nearby villages gathered in their support. Though this was a spontaneous action the Times of India screamed "Naxalites in Akola". Though this was no naxalite action the people’s limits of tolerance should not be tested beyond a point. For intellectuals waxing eloquent over non-violence in their protected atmosphere they had better learn the ground realities of what people really have to face.