Ahead of Durga Puja, one of the most eagerly-awaited movements across the Bangladesh-India border has been stalled. Bangladesh has not authorised its special consignment of hilsa, or ilish, for India this year, breaking with a practice that had become a ritual.

Over the last two years, as Bengalis prepared for their biggest festival, Dhaka would allow hundreds of tonnes of its national delicacy to travel west of the border, softening the ground for hard-nosed diplomacy with a mouthwatering appeal to ilish-lovers on both sides.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have become a bone of contention if the relationship between the two neighbours hadn’t become pricklier than before. The last two years have been spent in trying to find a new equilibrium after the fall of Sheikh Hasina, whose ‘exceptionally close’ relationship with New Delhi defined bilateral ties for more than a decade. Hasina’s continued presence in India and Dhaka’s demand for her extradition remain major sore points. Bangladesh’s suspension of hilsa export to India assumes significance in this context.

The irony is that hilsa has lately been travelling in the opposite direction. In an extraordinary reversal of the trade flow, around 553 tonnes of Indian hilsa entered Bangladesh through the Petrapole-Benapole border crossing between 20 July and 20 September. Much of it came from Gujarat, where hilsa catches have expanded around the Narmada basin and the Arabian Sea. However, on 22 September, Bangladesh’s department of fisheries cancelled 103 import permits, abruptly stopping the trade.

The Gujarat variety of hilsa encountered a more formidable obstacle than bureaucracy: the Bangladeshi palate. Consumers complained that the imported fish — allegedly passed off as Padma hilsa — lacked the divine texture, aroma and sweetness of that empress of........

© National Herald