It is worrisome that Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena has divested his Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe, of the law and order portfolio. This is not suggestive of where failure may have lain in controlling the communal conflagration in his island nation as much as a measure of desperation in the government to ensure that the violence doesn’t spiral out of control, as the future of the government itself might be at stake. Declaring a state of emergency seemed stern but the right thing to do in trying to stem the violence between the majority Sinhala Buddhists and the minority Muslims. It may appear silly that a traffic accident should trigger so much tension among the communities that it should spill over into violence after the Sinhala victim succumbed to his injuries. The vulnerability of the minorities was stressed as Muslim shops and residences were burnt in the central hill district of Kandy.

The political background to these incidents is what makes the situation fraught. The play of hate in an era of instant communications via social media is something that all governments have to tackle. The Sri Lankans have followed the classic pattern of shutting down social media access for a while, hoping the tensions subside once people are kept away from it, specially as they were being fed with rumours of attacks on places of worship. Of greater concern may be divisive politics, as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Perumana (SLPP) party is rising again, as seen in results of recent local elections. It is suspected Mr Rajapaksa may be stoking the latent fear of the resurfacing of Tamil extremism to derive political advantage. In fact, it was the insecurity of minority Tamils and Muslims that led to Mr Rajapaksa losing the presidency on being defeated in national elections. He paid a high price for the Aluthgama riots of 2014, when extremist Buddhist monks ran riot at the minorities’ expense.

Emboldened by the end of the civil war involving Tamils in 2009, Buddhist groups have been sharpening their stand against Muslims, leading to the heating up of this communal cauldron. The anti-Muslim riots may now be limited to Kandy, but if it spreads, the situation may even become conducive to a swing towards a hardline Sinhala regime. In the post-civil war scene since 2009, the Sinhalese have become an absolutely dominant group, but communal incidents have only been sporadic as in Gintola last year. The President himself visited Kandy to check on police operations. Containment of the violence must be his top priority as the support of the minorities is vital to the SLFP-UNP. The government has to take greater control over the actions of the police forces on the ground if it is to quickly bring about normality.