‘Durga puja gift’: Can the delicious Hilsa ease Dhaka-Delhi delicate ties?

The approval to export 3,000 tons of delicious Hilsa to India for the upcoming Durga Puja is a good gesture on the part of Dhaka to reset the ties with New Delhi. Foreign adviser Touhid Hossain said on the same day the decision to reverse the export ban was taken, "we must try to maintain a working relation" between the two countries.

Earlier this month, the interim government of Bangladesh had decided to stop hilsa export to India, ostensibly to meet the domestic demand and control domestic prices.

The ban came at a time when relations between the two neighbouring countries had hit its lowest ebb in decades, after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina regime, which was known to be friendly to India.

And the decision to export Hilsa to India comes at a time when both sides are looking for ways and means to repair the damage to the bilateral relations. And it came a week before the first bilateral engagement between New Delhi and Dhaka to be held in New York since the fall of the Hasina regime.

India's media were critical of Hilsa export ban, and now the latest development to export Hilsa has been widely lauded by the same Indian media, through their headlines.  

Lauding Bangladesh's interim government decision, The Telegraph online headline reads "Durga Puja gift: Bangladesh interim government to export 3,000 tonnes of hilsa to Bengal."

 "That decision threatened to end a tradition nurtured by ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina," reads the Telegraph report.

The ban imposed by the interim government in early September came as a shock for people in West Bengal. India's media deplored the ban in their headlines.

For example, Hindustan Times on 10 September said "Bangladesh plays spoilsport, bans Padma Hilsa fish export to India ahead of Durga Puja. In the report it said banning Hilsa export "defied a longstanding tradition of a shared cultural palate."   

The Print on 15 September said "Bangladesh has hit us where it hurts. Durga Puja will be incomplete without Hilsa." The write up reads "the Hilsa is not just a fish. It is both an emotion and an initiation ritual. It's food that makes us work—we have to sift through its endless bones to understand the near-perfect texture of the freshwater fish. And it's all the more important during Durga Puja, West Bengal's biggest celebration."

The mood has changed with the news of export of the delicious Hilsa. In response to a "special request" from India for the Durga Puja festival, the Ministry of Commerce has granted permission to export hilsa fish, said Fisheries and Livestock Adviser Farida Akhter.

This move is expected to contribute to a good reset when India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar meets his counterpart Touhid Hossain, foreign adviser of Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, formed following the downfall of Hasina regime in an uprising.    

Touhid and Jaishankar, both career diplomats, have already spoken for improving ties between Dhaka and New Delhi, in the new reality prevailing after the fall of Hasina, who enjoyed blanket support from India to rule Bangladesh for more than 15 years, regardless of the democratic backsliding in Bangladesh.

"Sorting out of all issues, we want to further advance our relationship based on mutual respect and fairness," the foreign adviser said on 21 September. 

Acknowledging the current strain between the two nations, Hossain said, "We must recognise the tension. If we don't address the problems, we won't be able to resolve them."

Four days ago, on 17 September, Jaishankar told NDTV that "the political churn in Bangladesh is that country's "internal matter" but India is keen to continue what was a stable relationship, underlining the maxim that neighbouring nations are "dependent on each other".

"What happens is their internal matter. Bangladesh is our neighbour and the relationship, on our part, is something we want to keep stable. We have good trade... our people-to-people ties are good... I want to keep the relationship that way," Jaishankar said.

Though the possibility of a meeting between Narendra Modi and Muhammad Yunus on the sideline of the UN General Assembly is unlikely, as Modi is set to leave New York before his Bangladesh counterpart reaches there, the foreign minister level talk is expected to set a new beginning.  

Being career diplomats, both Touhid and Jaishankar know well the dynamics of the relation between the two neighbouring countries.

And before their talks, the "durga puja gift", which is the export of 3,000 tons of delicious Hilsa, is expected to contribute to improve delicate relations between the two countries, with tension running high between the two neighbours after the fall of Hasina.  

Success and failure of Hilsa diplomacy

Hilsa diplomacy was introduced more than two and a half decades ago by Hasina when she was prime minister in her first term in 1996.

Hasina had sent Hilsa to the then West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu before the landmark Ganges water-sharing treaty was signed between Bangladesh and India. It was the beginning of what has since been referred to as Hilsa diplomacy.

She continued the new form of diplomacy over the years. In 2010, she brought with her Hilsa, along with other gifts, for Mamata Banerjee, the Railways Minister of India's Union government at the time. Then again, she sent 20kg of Hilsa to Mamata ahead of her oath-taking ceremony in 2016.

In April 2017, during her just visit to India, Hasina took her Hilsa diplomacy to a new level. She took with her 20kg Hilsa and other gifts for President Pranab, who was expected to break the stalemate over the Teesta issue.

During the visit, she took the helm of the kitchen at the Rashtrapati Bhaban and cooked 'steamed Hilsa', a delicacy among Bangali cuisines, for the Indian president for dinner.

But by that time, Hilsa diplomacy had failed to break the stalemate over the Teesta water sharing treaty.

The Teesta water sharing treaty could not be signed due to Mamata's opposition.

In 2011, when the then Indian PM Manmohon Singh was ready to make a major announcement on it during his Dhaka visit, Mamata's opposition foiled it.

The Modi government could not make any progress in the last decade. When Narendra Modi visited Dhaka in 2015, he assured us of resolving the Teesta issue. When Hasina visited New Delhi in 2017, Modi made the same assurance. But the Teesta water sharing treaty has yet to see the light.

Even when Bangladesh was facing Rohingyas exodus in 2017, India and China, two allies of the Hasina regime, did not stand by her to put pressure on Myanmar to stop Rohingyas cleansing.

During Modi's first visit to Dhaka in 2015, Bangladesh felt a "strengthened bond" with India that "would benefit people of the two countries as well as of the region." In 2016, Dhaka found a "new strategic partner" in Beijing when Chinese President Xi Jinping landed at Dhaka.

But both allies overlooked the burden on Bangladesh as they were and are still in a competition in Myanmar to consolidate their position.  

Now, the urgency is different, as after the fall of Hasina regime the relation between Dhaka and New Delhi has hit the lowest, from an unprecedented level of bonhomie during the rule of Hasina since 2009. Critics blamed India's policy for the present situation. Except for Hasina's Awami League, India has long viewed the current Bangladesh opposition and its allies as a threat to its interest and labelled them "dangerous Islamic forces."

Foreign policy analysts believe a new beginning is now the need of the time.

Reversing the Hilsa export ban means revival of Hilsa diplomacy, which The Telegraph terms "as Durga puja gift". Will the 'durga puja gift' usher in a new dawn of relation by diffusing the tension?

The initial onus now lies on Touhid Hossain and S Jaishankar as the duo are set to meet in a third country, in the first bilateral engagement after the fall of Hasina, to discuss how to reduce tension for a good start.

Shakhawat Liton, Deputy Executive Editor, The Business Standard. Sketch: TBS