A minor incident, a road scuffle or dispute over the price of a hair cut involving members of two different communities, for example, can lead to major riots in India. Or it can be an animal straying into a place of worship or over the right of a Hindu procession to play music while passing a mosque.

If some people drew parallels between last month’s riots in Sri Lanka’s Kandy and incidents of communal unrest in India, there are valid reasons. In Kandy too, it began with a road scuffle. Four drunken Muslim youths traveling on a three-wheeler in the district, known for its scenic beauty, beat up a Sinhala Buddhist truck driver because he did not allow them to overtake his truck.

Truck driver dies and Kandy and surrounding areas erupt in violence. At least three were killed. There was extensive destruction of Muslim-owned homes, shops and mosques, causing millions of dollars in damage. The rioting was brought under control by March 9 after deployment of the Special Task Force and the declaration of a countrywide emergency.

Buddhists make up about 70 percent of the island nation's 21 million people, with Muslims accounting for about 10 percent.

Though the situation has returned to normal, Sri Lankan watchers are at a loss to explain how a society, noted for communal harmony and tolerance, can explode in such spasms of violence over what should have been treated as a law and order problem.

Of course, Sri Lanka is not immune to such violence. And Muslims are not the only victims. It was the anti-Hindu riots of 1958 and1983 that drove many Tamils into the arms of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Tigers were known for the worst kind of atrocities, including suicide bombing, against those it considered its enemies. Then there was the Marxist Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) that, protesting the arrival of Indian Peace Keeping Force and the government’s “weak-kneed” policies toward Tamil separatists began a reign of terror in eighties against the state machinery and those sections of civil society opposed to its thinking.

Both LTTE and JVP grew out of some special circumstances and are no longer active. The present situation where a spark is enough to cause a major conflagration is different and requires a different kind of approach.

And signs were not lacking.

Buddhist extremists have periodically led attacks against Muslims. Groups like Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) have been pouring vitriol on the country's Muslim population. There are Sri Lankan counterparts of Wirathu, Myanmar’s firebrand preacher, spreading xenophobia, bigotry and hate speech. Some accuse Muslims of forcing people to convert to Islam and vandalizing Buddhist archaeological sites.

One group went as far as charging one Muslim-owned shop with selling candy that would turn Buddhist women infertile! Amith Weerasinghe, a Buddhist radical with more than 150,000 followers, was seen on a video prodding Sinhalese to attack Muslims in Kandy. Both the ruling and opposition parties have enlisted their services for political purposes.

As in India, British colonial authorities had incited ethnic and religious groups against each other in a policy of divide and rule. As in Myanmar, Facebook too has played a destructive rule. In the West, the problem may be data privacy but in Asia, Facebook has become a powerful vehicle for hate speech. Some of the violence has been instigated by Facebook postings that threatened more attacks on Muslims, the Sri Lankan Government said before blocking Facebook, Viber and WhatsApp across the country for three days.

Kandy riots should be taken as a warning signal. Facebook needs to move more quickly and energetically to identify and remove content that violates its "community standards" barring racist and religious hatred. The Sri Lankan government should take strong steps against those spreading communal poison. Muslim leaders should realize that some of their members are playing into the hands of Buddhist extremists.