Politics of hilsa: Rumours, silence and reality

Silver Lure
In October 2025, just before Durga Puja, the price of a one-kilogram hilsa rose to around Tk2,900 at Dhaka’s Karwan Bazar. Yet the fisherman who spends night after night casting his net in the Meghna estuary often cannot afford to put even a piece of hilsa on his own children’s plates for months on end.

The irony is so stark that Anisur Rahman, one of the country’s leading hilsa researchers, told Prothom Alo that hilsa prices had become genuinely abnormal. Bangladesh has an abundance of hilsa, he said, yet there is no justification for prices to be so high.

Hilsa is Bangladesh’s national fish, but to Bengalis it represents far more than a national symbol. From panta-ilish on Pahela Baishakh to the Bengali kitchen and the Bengali sense of pride, its silver presence is everywhere. This cultural significance has also made Padma hilsa an object of fascination across the border; in Kolkata’s Puja markets, Padma hilsa remains a marker of prestige. It was this desire that eventually gave birth to what came to be known as hilsa diplomacy.

But behind the hilsa displayed in styrofoam boxes at Karwan Bazar, beyond its seasonal price fluctuations, lies something much larger than a simple market story: why has a fish that once symbolised abundance increasingly slipped beyond the reach of ordinary people?

The question is not merely about inflation or economics. It is also about the political psychology surrounding hilsa.

During Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, the government repeatedly claimed that hilsa production had reached record levels, that Bangladesh alone produced nearly 85 per cent of the world’s hilsa, and that the fish had become accessible to ordinary consumers. Yet at the same time, social media and tea-stall conversations were filled with the opposite narrative: that hilsa was being smuggled into India, that prices were being artificially suppressed under political pressure, that production figures were being manufactured for propaganda, and so on.

After the fall of the Hasina government in August 2024, the story appeared to reverse itself. Production fell to an eight-year low, prices reached record highs, and exports dropped to a seven-year low. Yet this time, there was no comparable wave of rumours and no sustained public questioning.

When prices were relatively low, accusations were loud; when prices crossed the affordability threshold, the accusations disappeared.

Production Figures: Truth, Exaggeration and the Limits of Sustainability

According to the Department of Fisheries, hilsa production fell to a historic low of 1.99 lakh tonnes in the 2002–03 fiscal year. It subsequently recovered gradually through the combined impact of jatka conservation programmes, the 22-day breeding ban and a 65-day marine fishing ban. Production reached 2.98 lakh tonnes in 2008–09 and climbed to 5.71 lakh tonnes in 2022–23—the highest level recorded to date.

In October 2023, then Fisheries and Livestock Minister S. M. Rezaul Karim claimed that hilsa production had increased by 92 per cent over the previous 15 years.

The oft-repeated claim that 85–86 per cent of the world’s hilsa comes from Bangladesh, however, is neither universally accepted nor supported by a single definitive dataset.

According to widely cited WorldFish data, the figure is closer to 65 per cent.

The biggest warning sign, however, concerns sustainability. Several studies have estimated the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) of hilsa at roughly 5.26 lakh tonnes a year. Yet production exceeded that level for four consecutive years, from 2019–20 to 2022–23. Stock assessments by the Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute warned that harvesting more than 700,000 tonnes annually could undermine the biological base of the stock and damage future production.

In other words, record production was not necessarily a story of an overflowing harvest. It may instead have been a story of spending tomorrow’s fish stock today.

In 2021–22, the growth rate of production fell to just 0.25 per cent, nowhere near the Department of Fisheries’ own target of 6.2 lakh tonnes. 6 Production subsequently fell to around 5.29 lakh tonnes in 2023–24 and further to approximately 5.04 lakh tonnes in 2024–25, the lowest level in eight years.

The national production figure for 2025–26 has not yet been formally published, although departmental statistics indicate that the downward trend has continued.

These official figures are now themselves facing scrutiny. In a field investigation in Lakshmipur in July 2025, The Business Standard found that departmental data collectors were absent from fish landing centres much of the time, while many of the figures appeared to have been estimated rather than systematically recorded.

The Price Explosion and the Broken Rules of Economics

One of the Awami League government’s most popular claims was that hilsa had become affordable for ordinary people. An Al Jazeera report published on 1 October 2024 said the price of one kilogram of hilsa in Bangladesh had reached around Tk 1,800, compared with approximately Tk 1,300 the previous year.

By October 2025, the price had climbed further, reaching Tk 2,800–3,000 per kilogram. In November, one kilogram of hilsa was selling for Tk 2,600–2,700 in markets in Munshiganj.

According to Mainul Khan, chairman of the Bangladesh Trade and Tariff Commission (BTTC), hilsa prices in the domestic market had risen by 57 per cent over five years. At current prices, he noted, the cost of one kilogram of hilsa is equivalent to roughly three kilograms of beef. 10 The comparison is startling; the reality is even harsher.

The relationship between production and price does not appear to follow the familiar rules of economics.

Mizanur Rahman, a professor of economics at Barishal BM College, observed that hilsa production has almost doubled over the past 25 years, yet prices have not fallen—they have increased.

The question, therefore, is straightforward: if production has genuinely increased as the government statistics suggest, why have prices not fallen?
There is no single answer. The explanation lies within the entire supply chain.

A BTTC investigation found that in the hilsa supply chains of Chandpur, Bhola, Barishal, Patuakhali, Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar, there are five stages between fishermen and retail markets, with prices rising by as much as 59–60 per cent at each stage.

Fishermen are often trapped in the dadon system, tied to a class of wholesalers who provide advance payments and then control the entire sale at predetermined prices. Here, the real driver of price increases is not necessarily a shortage of supply, but the structural power of intermediaries.

And this brings us back to the uncomfortable question.

During the Hasina era, when prices were comparatively lower, rumours of hilsa being smuggled into India were at their loudest. Yet today, when prices have genuinely moved beyond the reach of much of the middle class, and fishermen themselves can no longer afford the fish they catch, where are those voices now?

The silence has meaning. But to understand that meaning, one must look at the politics concealed behind it.

Why the Shortage Now? Structural Causes

The crisis begins with siltation and the degradation of river systems.
The Department of Fisheries has identified severe siltation across 52 river routes. 11 Along the Meghna–Tetulia corridor, the 50-kilometre stretch between Sonarchar and Dalchar has narrowed so severely that hilsa can barely migrate upstream to spawn.

This is compounded by unrestricted fishing at sea and inadequate monitoring. Around 60 per cent of Bangladesh’s hilsa is caught in the sea, yet Molla Imdadullah, director of the Hilsa Resource Development Project, has acknowledged that there are hardly any effective measures in place to protect hilsa in marine waters.

River fishing restrictions are relatively strict; at sea, enforcement is far weaker.

The third blow comes from the trawler economy.

Jahangir, a fisherman from the remote Kachikata Union of Padma, says that 10 to 12 fishermen work on each boat. Fuel and food consume a substantial portion of their daily earnings. Yet after casting their nets throughout the day, they sometimes return with only two or three hilsa. With fish becoming increasingly scarce, he says, simply maintaining their households has become difficult.

Registered hilsa production in Shariatpur fell from 4,528 tonnes in 2021 to 3,705 tonnes in 2025. 13
And this helps resolve part of the earlier question.

The allegations of hilsa smuggling across the border during the Hasina era were often dismissed as mere rumours, despite the enormous attention they received at a time when prices were relatively low.

Today, however, cross-border smuggling is no longer merely an allegation.

In October 2024, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) detained an Indian truck driver at the Sonamasjid border in Chapainawabganj with smuggled hilsa. Around the same period, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) also seized several consignments of hilsa being smuggled from Bangladesh into India—what might be called reverse smuggling.

Yet today, when the allegation has become a documented reality, those once vocal voices have fallen silent.
What once generated loud cries when it was supposedly false has barely produced a whisper now that evidence exists.

The difference is too stark to ignore. It suggests that the objective was not necessarily to establish the truth of the allegation, but simply to make the allegation itself.

The Cross-Border Dimension: Farakka, West Bengal and a Shared Failure

Another layer of the crisis extends beyond Bangladesh. It concerns the entire Bengal delta.

The story of rivers filling with silt and blocking hilsa migration is not unique to the Padma and Meghna. The Ganges has experienced much the same fate.

Since the commissioning of the Farakka Barrage in 1975, hilsa migration upstream through the Ganges has effectively collapsed. A fish that once travelled as far as Allahabad now struggles to move beyond the barrage and its downstream zone.

West Bengal’s own hilsa population has also been declining for years. In the estuarine waters stretching from Diamond Harbour to Digha and Kolaghat, pollution, unrestricted jatka fishing and declining navigability have all taken their toll.
The lesson for Bangladesh is straightforward.

Hilsa is fundamentally a shared resource of a single delta, and the mistakes made on both sides of the border are strikingly similar.

River navigability and the management of shared rivers lie at the heart of the crisis. What the Farakka Barrage has done to hilsa migration in the Ganges, sedimentation and declining upstream flows are increasingly doing to hilsa in the Padma–Meghna system.

Exports to India: Promises, Reversals and Market Reality

Hilsa exports to India are about more than trade. They are tied to the cultural relationship between the two Bengals and have almost become an annual ritual.

Every autumn, before Durga Puja, importers in Kolkata traditionally wait for consignments of Padma hilsa from Bangladesh.

It was precisely at this point of expectation that two successive blows came in 2024 and 2025. On 11 August 2024, Fisheries and Livestock Adviser Farida Akhter said that hilsa would be exported only after domestic demand had been met. In an interview with an Indian news outlet on 13 September, she took an even stronger position, saying that Bangladesh could not send hilsa to India when its own people were not getting enough.

The statement was widely applauded across Bangladesh. Yet within a couple of weeks, the position changed.

On 21–22 September, the Ministry of Commerce initially approved the export of 3,000 tonnes of hilsa and later reduced the figure to 2,420 tonnes.

The Fisheries Ministry quickly distanced itself from the decision. Farida Akhter said it was a decision of the Commerce Ministry and had nothing to do with her ministry.

In the end, against the 2,420 tonnes approved for export in 2024, only 532 tonnes were actually exported over 11 days.

The picture was even more dramatic in 2025.

Although the approved quota was reduced to 1,200 tonnes, actual exports amounted to only 145 tonnes—106 tonnes through Benapole and 39 tonnes through Akhaura.

Since the easing of a decade-long export ban in 2019–20, this was the lowest export volume recorded.

Significantly, the export collapse in 2025 was not the result of a government ban. It was largely market-driven.

Abdul Mannan, director of Chattogram-based Pacific Sea Foods, told The Business Standard that although his company had permission to export 40,000 kilograms, it managed to ship only 1,560 kilograms. The reason was simple: domestic prices were so high that even at the minimum export price of US$12.50 per kilogram, there was little or no profit.

Moreover, cheaper hilsa from Myanmar was proving more competitive in the Indian market.

The number of exporting companies has also declined sharply—from 115 in 2021 to just 37 in 2025.

That number is not necessarily an indicator of political goodwill. It is a direct reflection of pressure within the domestic market.

Governments change, but the narrative does not

In April 2026, before Pahela Baishakh, the new Fisheries and Livestock Minister Mohammad Amin Ur Rashid was asked at a press briefing during Jatka Conservation Week whether hilsa would be sent to India that year.

His response was that the government did not officially export hilsa; whatever went to India was merely a gesture of goodwill, and the final decision on whether hilsa would be sent would be made by the Prime Minister himself.

The wording closely echoed Farida Akhter’s position in 2024. Only the speaker and the political context had changed.

Ultimately, not a single hilsa was sent to India for Pahela Baishakh that year. In 2025, at least 145 tonnes had gone to India for Durga Puja; in 2026, the figure fell to zero. Yet two months later, in June, the same minister struck a different note.

Calling for an expansion of Bangladesh’s capacity to export hilsa to international markets, he said hilsa should not be confined solely to domestic demand.

In April, he had also claimed that if jatka were properly protected, hilsa production could eventually rise to 2 million metric tonnes, nearly four times the current level.

On 1 July 2020, the Department of Fisheries launched a six-year project titled “Hilsa Resource Development and Management”, aimed at increasing hilsa production and fish size. Yet in the period following the project, production did not rise at the expected rate. Instead, declining catches, declining river navigability, pollution and habitat degradation emerged as major concerns.

Project Deputy Director Md. Nasir Uddin argued that the number of hilsa being caught had actually increased; the apparent decline in annual harvest by weight, he suggested, was because the fish had become smaller.

According to him, fishing pressure had increased to such an extent that large numbers of fish were being caught during their first breeding season, resulting in markets being flooded with smaller hilsa rather than larger ones.

Mir Mohammad Ali, an assistant professor at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, considers this explanation an attempt to avoid responsibility. In his view, the problem goes deeper. Power plants have been built along rivers near sanctuaries, toxic water has made parts of the Padma–Meghna system increasingly unsuitable for hilsa, fishermen cast nets continuously across estuaries and obstruct migration routes, while submerged shoals and declining navigability further restrict the remaining pathways.

According to data from the Barishal Divisional Fisheries Office, hilsa production reached a peak of 3.72 lakh tonnes in 2022–23 before declining steadily to 2.66 lakh tonnes in 2025–26. Fisheries officials have cited siltation at river mouths, jatka fishing, pollution and obstructions along hilsa migration routes as possible causes.

It would be unfair to deny that the hilsa policies of the Hasina era also produced genuine successes.
Production increased several-fold, the 22-day fishing ban became more effective, and the successful breeding rate reached 52.4 per cent in 2023, an increase of 104.8 per cent compared with the 2001–02 baseline.

In 2017, hilsa received Geographical Indication (GI) recognition, and Bangladesh remains the world’s largest hilsa producer.

One argument therefore holds that the current crisis is primarily the result of unusual weather in 2024, rising fuel costs, the dollar shortage and the inexperience of the interim government.

Each of these factors, considered separately, has some basis in reality.

Conclusion: From a Silver Symbol to a Mirror of the State

Hilsa is Bangladesh’s national fish not merely in name, but as a symbol of cultural identity.

Yet the picture of fishing families presented in a Prothom Alo report in 2025 tells a different story: the fish caught in the nets of trawlers ends up on wholesalers’ trucks, not on the plates of fishermen’s children.

Media report has described hilsa as gradually becoming a luxury food for the wealthy.

This is not merely a question of economic statistics. It is the slow death of a national symbol.
Production has failed to come close to its targets. Government officials themselves have acknowledged that it has remained below five lakh tonnes. Prices have not fallen; instead, they have risen by Tk 500–700 per kilogram. And rather than making progress on removing silt, the six-year project designed to address the problem has ended without delivering the expected results.

Taken together, these three facts suggest that the crisis is not merely cyclical. It is becoming structural.
Perhaps the greatest lesson is this:
When a state turns its own statistics into instruments of public relations, the real crisis can become invisible even to the policymakers themselves.

Eighty-five per cent. Ninety-two per cent. 104.8 per cent. Even the new dream of two million tonnes.

These numbers can create an illusion of success while obscuring the more important questions: Why did production growth stall after 2021–22? Why did the peak of 2022–23 turn out to be the last peak?

And then there is the silence.
During the Hasina era, rumours persisted even when prices were relatively low. Today, prices have soared, yet the rumour-mongers have fallen silent.

That silence suggests that the rumours of the past were not necessarily driven by a search for truth. They were driven by a search for power.

When a society begins to measure truth according to political identity rather than evidence, genuine crises can disappear from public view.
In 2019, hilsa sent to India as a gift was a symbol of diplomacy.

In 2025, hilsa displayed in styrofoam boxes at Karwan Bazar became a different kind of symbol—the symbol of Bengalis being increasingly separated from their own national fish.

And in 2026, the fishermen of Mahipur returning to shore empty-handed offer yet another symbol:
The symbol may change. The government may change. But the state itself does not.

Author: Fellow, Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB)

Sources:

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