New Delhi: Narayan Chandra went to his local market to buy hilsa. He bought two 800-gram fish for Tk 1,200 each. It was his first hilsa purchase of the season, and he was already imagining the beloved fish on his plate that evening.
But when the cut pieces were fried in hot mustard oil, they broke apart. Chandra was surprised. He had never seen Bangladesh’s famous Padma hilsa crumble like this.
“Was it Gujarat’s hilsa or an old fish? It did not taste like Bangladesh ilish,” Chandra told ThePrint over a call from Dhaka.
His suspicion was not misplaced. In recent months, tonnes of hilsa from Gujarat’s Narmada region had entered Bangladesh, where some traders allegedly sold the fish as Padma hilsa. On Wednesday (23 September), Bangladesh halted hilsa imports from India, cancelling 103 no-objection certificates (NOCs) issued to importers. Between 20 July and 20 September, reports say 553 tonnes had entered Bangladesh through Benapole.
“People in Bangladesh were buying Gujarat hilsa because sellers spread rumours saying these were Padma hilsa,” said a fish market owner in Dhaka.
Chandra was among those caught by the sales strategy.
“It is cheap and bigger in size, but when it comes to taste, it is nowhere near Bangladesh hilsa,” the fish market owner told ThePrint.
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Not happy with Gujarat hilsa
Alamgir Patwary, a resident of Chandpur, also went looking for ilish a few days ago. He could tell the difference almost immediately when the seller told him the fish was Bangladeshi hilsa.
“Gujarat hilsa looks like it has come from the sea. It lacks the sweetness,” he said.
Even after Bangladesh halted imports, the Bangladesh Marine Fishery Association claimed Gujarat hilsa continued to enter the market through illegal routes.
“On Wednesday, around 75 tonnes reached the shore through the Sundarbans border area,” said Sheikh Abid Hussain, secretary of the BMFA.
When Hussain went to buy hilsa in Dhaka after Friday prayers, he too noticed Gujarat fish in the market.
“For an ordinary person, there might be no difference at first glance, but we can tell the difference,” he said.
No one could say exactly when Gujarat hilsa began appearing in the markets. But the Dhaka fish market owner said he had found it in several major markets across the city.
When reports of Gujarat hilsa being sold in Bangladesh spread, consumers began questioning what they had been buying. Chandra, too, understood why his fish had tasted different.
“We could never have made a hilsa curry with it,” he said. His family instead made hilsa bharta, a mashed hilsa preparation.
Chandra was disappointed with the quality. He remembers a time nearly two years ago when he bought kilogrammes of hilsa from Chandpur, a hub for some of Bangladesh’s most prized fish.
A kilogramme of Chandpur hilsa cost around Tk 2,000 then.
“That fish did not require extra oil. Once it was fried in hot oil, the entire area would know hilsa was being cooked,” Chandra said.
Narmada hilsa could not bring that magic to his plate.
Also read: Gujarat’s surprise hilsa boom feeds Bengal’s most prized appetite
Gujarat hilsa fails to win over traders
With Bangladesh’s domestic hilsa catch declining, traders had turned to Gujarat in search of cheaper fish and a small profit. But the gamble did not work for everyone.
Das, one of Dhaka’s biggest wholesalers, has been in the business for nearly two decades. Unlike several other traders, he did not switch to Gujarat hilsa. He continued selling Bangladeshi hilsa, even when the quality was lower.
“Gujarat hilsa was sold at Tk 1,200 per kg. With Tk 250 per kg in taxes and other charges, the fish earned no profit for shopkeepers,” Das told ThePrint.
It was also the first time he had seen hilsa from western India enter the Bangladeshi market at such a scale.
Hilsa, often called the “queen of fish”, is Bangladesh’s national fish and holds a special place in Bengali cuisine on both sides of the border.
For consumers in Bangladesh, however, Gujarat hilsa has struggled to replicate the taste and aroma associated with Padma hilsa. And despite the hopes of traders who turned to Gujarat when supplies tightened, the western Indian fish has found few fans in Bangladesh.
The result is an unusual reversal in the hilsa trade: a fish traditionally coveted across the border has travelled from Gujarat to Bangladesh, only to leave consumers longing for the hilsa they already knew.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)