Standing next to a tall, wired fence, Sinnathurai Chitravelayutham looks out at his farming land. It's been nearly 20 years since he was allowed to use it. 

"Don't ask me how I feel, I'll get upset," the 68-year-old told DW. 

Chitravelayutham is a rice farmer from Sampur in eastern Sri Lanka's Trincomalee District. He fled his homeland in April 2006, after the area came under heavy shelling during Sri Lanka's civil war.

The conflict, which spanned from the mid 1980s to 2009, was primarily a struggle between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority, with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) — also known as the Tamil Tigers — fighting government forces for an independent state.

When he returned after the conflict had ended, he and 107 others found their farming land was under government control. They said attempts to farm on their land were met with threats of arrest, and a fence was later erected to stop them from gaining access.

To date, they say they have not received any compensation.

Now, their land has been allocated as the site for a new solar power plant to be built as a collaborative project between Sri Lanka's Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and India's state-owned National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake jointly inaugurated the project during Modi's visit to Sri Lanka in April.

A battle for compensation

The land belonging to Chitravelayutham and the other villagers was designated as a high-security zone in 2008, at the height of the civil war. 

Kandumani Lavakusarasa, the coordinator of the AHAM Humanitarian Resource Center in Trincomalee, said over 500 acres had now been allocated for the solar power plant. 

Of that total, he said 147 acres used to be farming land belonging to villagers including Chitravelayutham, and a further 58 acres was residential land.

The Governor of the Eastern Province's Media Division told DW that "legal action" was being taken to provide redress to claimants "who have rights to the land," while those "who are able to prove their legal status in writing and live here can apply for the compensation process."

Although the villagers have temporary deeds, they said the Divisional Secretariat, which handles land allocation, had requested to see the original deeds and survey plans before examining any claims. 

The villagers told DW they wanted their original lands back because they were fertile and well irrigated, and that other land would likely not meet the same specifications.

In a statement, the Muthur Divisional Secretariat (DS), which is responsible for oversight of the land in Sampur, told DW that only two people had applied for compensation, but did not say whether they had received it. 

It also said officials had received a report from 33 people requesting that the land be returned to them, but that they were "currently residing in other government land and engaged in cultivation." The DS added that steps would be taken to provide alternative land "if they are confirmed to be truly landless". 

Dhammike Wimalaratne, spokesperson for the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB), told DW that he had no knowledge that anyone had come forward to claim the land, which had been identified as being owned by the government.   

However, he added that "the people are number one" and said they should meet the Divisional Secretariat to prove their right of ownership. 

DW reached out to India's NTPC and government officials for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

India-Sri Lanka relations

Initially, India and Sri Lanka wanted to collaborate on a coal power plant in Sampur, but the plan was scrapped in 2016 after a widespread outcry. 

Current president Dissanayake's Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party was a staunch opponent of the initial plan.

"People were happy because they thought they would get their land back, but it didn't happen," AHAM coordinator Lavakusarasa told DW. 

Villager Chitravelayutham said he had voted for leftist Dissanayake, whose government took power in November, in the hopes that things might change. 

"We thought that when this government came to power, they would give us our land back, but it doesn't look like we're going to get anything," he said.

He believes Sampur was chosen "because it's a Tamil area" and that the government "wouldn't do this in a Sinhalese area." 

But Chitravelayutham refused to criticize India. "It's the Sri Lankan government who gave it and it's their responsibility to solve the problems here," he said. "The Indian government doesn't know this land belongs to people."

Alakurasa Mathan, deputy coordinator of the AHAM Humanitarian Resource Center, said he believed the "real reason" for the collaboration between India and Sri Lanka was the former's security interests, and that the plant might never be built.

"In the interests of international politics, the livelihoods of poor farmers have been sacrificed," he told DW. "That's the truth." 

The Governor's Media Division rejected the claims about Tamil areas being targeted and India's security intentions as "false," adding that "there is no need or purpose for any group of people or a select group to be inconvenienced." 

Farming legacy being lost

Namasivayam Sivapatham, 58, said the villagers are not against the idea of a solar power plant, but that there was "lots of other land that isn't used for farming" where it could be built. 

He is also skeptical about the proposed compensation. "They don't have any plans to give us compensation. They have a plan to cheat us," he said.

For villagers like Sivapatham, the construction will come at the cost of their land, which they say has been passed down through generations.

"I feel sad. What should we do? I'm worrying about how to get my land back, it's a huge concern. How will I give it to my children?" he told DW.

"What's the point in giving the land to another country?" Sivapatham asked. "What can you do with electricity? Farming provides us with food. Can you eat current?"

Edited by: Karl Sexton