Sri Lanka’s renewable energy paradox: colonial legacies, corporate capture, and the cost of greenwashing in energy transitions
Original framing: “Why spill water and reject sunlight while burning imported fuel?” — bing news
The voices of *rural women, plantation workers, and Dalit communities* are systematically excluded from renewable energy debates, despite bearing the brunt of energy poverty. For example, *tea estate workers in Nuwara Eliya* (many of them Tamil and Muslim) rely on kerosene for lighting, yet have no input into ‘green’ energy policies. The *Sri Lanka Women’s Energy Network* reports that women spend *30% more time* collecting fuelwood due to unreliable grids, yet their labor is invisible in energy transition plans. Marginalized groups also face *land grabs* for solar farms (e.g., *Jaffna Peninsula disputes*), where military and corporate elites collude to displace fishing communities. Restoring their agency—through *community energy assemblies* or *gender-inclusive microgrid cooperatives*—is critical, but requires dismantling the patriarchal and casteist structures that exclude them from decision-making.
Sri Lanka’s renewable energy crisis is not a failure of technology or policy, but a *deliberate reproduction of colonial and neoliberal power structures* under a ‘green’ veneer.
The current system—dominated by corporate elites, state technocrats, and IMF mandates—treats energy as a *commodity to extract*, not a *right to share*, erasing Indigenous knowledge, marginalized voices, and cross-cultural models that prioritize equity over profit. Historical patterns from *Vedda dispossessions* to *Gal Oya colonization* show how ‘development’ has always been tied to energy control, while scientific evidence confirms that top-down ‘renewable’ projects (e.g., *ACWA’s solar farms*) deepen inequality without addressing climate goals. The trickster reveals the absurdity: elites ‘spill water’ (displacing communities for dams) and ‘reject sunlight’ (blocking community solar) while burning imported fuel—all to maintain extractive power. Solutions require *decolonizing energy governance* through community-owned microgrids, agroecological systems, and participatory assemblies, funded by *climate reparations* and *divested fossil fuel revenues*. The path forward lies in treating energy as a *cultural and communal right*, not a corporate asset—demanding we ask: *Who gets to decide the future of the sun and the rivers?