Banerjee’s Teesta Intransigence Starves Bong Sons-in-law Of ‘Ilish’ Feast

Wednesday, 31 May, was an important date for Bengali families. And they all blamed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for spoiling the date.

Wednesday happened to be the sixth day of Shukla Paksha (the waxing phase of the moon) in the month of Jaistha (May-June) and the day is observed as jamai shasti by Bengalis. Sons-in-law (‘jamais’, as they’re called in Bengali) are invited and showered with expensive gifts and sumptuous meals. And ilish (or hilsa) from the Padma river in Bangladesh has always been the high point of these meals.

But thanks to Banerjee’s intransigence over sharing of the waters of the Teesta river, Bangladesh has retaliated by banning exports of the prime Bengali delicacy to Bengal. The ban, an informal one, was put in place last year but the rigid enforcement started this year. As a result, there is no ‘ilish’ from Padma — considered to be the most delectable among the entire lot of the fish from the different rivers of Bengal, Bangladesh and Myanmar — in the markets of Kolkata.

Small quantities of the fish are being smuggled in through portions of the Indo-Bangla border that are porous, and through the Sundarbans which, with its innumerable rivers and creeks, is impossible to monitor. But the smuggled fish is prohibitively expensive: a mid-sized ‘ilish’ weighing about 1.5 kilograms went for Rs 7,000 at Kolkata’s Lake Market on Tuesday evening. Bengali families are making do with the less tastier ‘ilish’ from the Hooghly river, and that too is quite out of reach for even middle-class folks with the small, one-kilo variety costing at least Rs 2,500.

Without the ‘ilish’ from the Padma, fish traders have imported the anadromous fish from Myanmar’s Irrawaddy river as the next-best-thing to ‘ilish’ from the Padma. But that, too, is expensive: an ‘ilish’ weighing 1.5 kilograms (that is the smallest size of the imported fish) costs nothing less than Rs 6,000. Last year, a big ‘ilish’ from Myanmar weighing four kilos sold for an astronomical Rs 22,000! Till 2015, when Bangladesh used to allow exports of the ‘ilish’ from Padma, the fish used to be sold for an affordable Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 a kilogram in Kolkata. The ‘ilish’ from Hooghly, which is nowhere as tasty as the fish from Padma, was selling for Rs 1,500 a kilogram in Kolkata on Tuesday evening.

Sensing that Bengalis would blame her for the unavailability of ‘ilish’ from the Padma, an uncharacteristically mellow Banerjee took her complaint against Bangladesh banning the export of the fish to Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week. At her meeting with Modi on 25 May, she urged the Prime Minister to request Dhaka to lift the ban on hilsa exports, at least temporarily. But Modi could do little except listen patiently to the petulant Banerjee reciting her list of complaints against Bangladesh. After all, it is Bangladesh’s prerogative to export or not export the Bengali delicacy to Bengal.

Banerjee had brought up the topic when she met Bangladesh Premier Sheikh Hasina during a visit to Dhaka in February last year. According to diplomats present at the meeting, when Banerjee casually requested Hasina to allow export of ‘ilish’ to Bengal, a smiling Hasina had replied that the ‘ilish’ catch has gone down drastically due to paucity of water in the Teesta river as it enters Bangladesh. The Teesta river enters Bangladesh from the northern part of Bengal and flows south to meet the Brahmaputra, which ultimately joins the Padma (the name that Ganga acquires once it enters Bangladesh). It is from the area around the confluence of the Brahmaputra and Padma that the tastiest ‘ilish’ is caught. “Give water and take ilish,” the soft-spoken Hasina told Banerjee with a smile but in a firm voice.

Hasina has been generous in the past. A little over a year ago, on 26 May 2016, to be precise, Hasina had sent 20 kilograms of ‘ilish’ from the Padma as a gift to Banerjee for her swearing-in for the second consecutive term as Chief Mminister of Bengal that day. Banerjee and her ministers and MLAs reportedly relished the fish at a dinner that evening. When Banerjee called on Hasina during the latter’s visit to Delhi in early-April, the latter again gifted her ‘ilish’. Bangladeshi diplomats said those gifts were teasers from Hasina to drive home the message to Banerjee that the people of Bengal could relish the fish if she (Banerjee ) drops her objections to the proposed Teesta water sharing agreement.

Dhaka has not limited itself to just banning the export of ‘ilish’ from the Padma. Bangladesh has hiked the import duty on mangoes from Malda in Bengal from 10 per cent to 50 per cent, making the import of Malda mangoes in to Bangladesh totally unviable. Malda produces about 5.5 lakh tonnes of mangoes annually, and over 70 per cent of the produce used to be exported to Bangladesh. But with the steep hike in import duties, the export has stopped and Malda’s mango farmers are facing a crisis. Banerjee took this issue up also with Modi, but once again, the latter could do little.

Dhaka has also found other ways to needle Banerjee. Bangladesh has constructed dams and small barrages across the Atrai,Tangon and Punarbhaba rivers that flow through Bangladesh before entering Bengal. People of North and South Dinajpur and other districts of Bengal these three rivers flow into depend on the waters of these rivers for irrigating their farmlands and meeting their personal needs. But the sharp decrease in the flow of these rivers after the barrages were constructed since last year has put an estimated 20 lakh people in extreme difficulty. Added to this is the highly polluted waters of the Churni river that also flows from Bangladesh into Nadia district of Bengal. The discharge of effluents from sugar mills, distilleries and pharmaceutical units situated on the banks of the river in Bangladesh has led to a steep increase in the levels of pollution of the waters of this river. This has severely affected the health and livelihood of about 1.5 lakh people of Nadia who depend on the Churni for fishing, agriculture and their daily needs. These issues were also flagged by Banerjee during her meeting with Modi last month.

Bangladesh has made it clear that it will lift the ban on export of ‘ilish’ to Bengal, cut import duties on Malda mangoes, dismantle barrages on the Atrai, Tangon and Punarbhaba rivers and check discharge of effluents into the Churni river only when Bengal agrees to share the waters of the Teesta in a fair and equitable manner. It is a give and take that Dhaka finds only fair to insist on. It lies on Banerjee to take a call. After all, the happiness, health and livelihood of millions of people of Bengal depend on her now.