When there were no rules on catching hilsa, plenty were caught in the Bengali months of Bhadra and Ashwin. Big hilsa swarmed in the rivers and the sea, and were shipped by truck and by train to markets in every corner of the country. Local people would say the market was awash with shipped-in fish that day, and prices were very cheap.

Village people could buy cheap hilsa and enjoy it at this time of year, and send some to relatives. Now Bhadra passes, Ashwin passes, and hilsa does not reach village markets. What is on sale in the markets is chandana, a tough foreign fish caught in the seas off Oman and Sudan that looks like hilsa. Many who buy chandana once, thinking it is small hilsa, feel cheated and never buy it again, and tell others not to buy it either.

This year, after the fishing ban ended in Bhadra, there are reports of plenty of hilsa being caught in the rivers and sea. Thanks to YouTube and Facebook, nothing that happens anywhere in the world can be kept secret these days. The other morning a 30 kg popa fish was caught in the sea near Cox's Bazar and was priced at Tk 7 lakh, because a kind of surgical thread, which is very expensive, is made from the lining of the popa's air bladder. Sea-going fishermen know this nowadays, so when they catch one they immediately photograph it and spread it online, and it is sold from the photo. Though the fishermen get only a small price, the fish changes hands and reaches big fish traders who sell it at unimaginable prices, and the fishermen never even know. This is the trickery of the internet. With hilsa, the trickery is stranger still.

When trawlers land at Chandpur, Cox's Bazar or Patharghata after a hilsa catch, many YouTubers rush to photograph the fresh fish. They film and photograph all the fish in the market in various poses and are eager to promote them through their own accounts. With their camera tricks and commentary, they tend to go into every last detail of the hilsa: its looks, weight, colour, size and price.

Fishermen, wholesalers and retailers are interviewed too, and the videos soon catch the attention of everyone online. Swayed by the YouTubers' sweet talk, the lady of the house or the domestic help starts asking for hilsa to be bought. Can anyone guess what then happens to the many who go to the market, bag in hand, to buy hilsa?

Hilsa is expensive even at the height of the season. This year, with exports stopped, hilsa lovers were delighted. But there has been no positive effect on prices at the markets and landings. People cannot afford such high prices, and are stunned when they go to the market.

One man, standing in the fish market with an empty bag, lamented: "Because of the sky-high price of hilsa, I haven't dared buy a single fish in the last two years either. For a hilsa of one kg or 1.2 kg they are asking Tk 1,800 to 2,200. The price hasn't come down at all. The hilsa prices shown on YouTube are just a trick!"

In the market itself one heard: "There are fish in the river and they are being caught in shoals. Supply has really gone up. But the hilsa hoarding syndicate has become extremely active again this year." Every day at dawn hundreds of trawlers laden with hilsa come in from the sea and rivers. Hilsa wholesalers have already lent money to the trawlers to send them out, so the lion's share of the catch goes to the dadan (advance-lending) traders. The dadan money comes from elsewhere: from supermarket owners and stakeholders, who invest in advance in hilsa fishing in hope of excessive profit.

So those who lament where the hilsa goes, or is going, do not understand at whose signal it is buried under ice deep inside cold stores.

By one reckoning, hilsa should be reaching ordinary people's plates and its aroma rising in every home, now that we are hearing the pledges of a discrimination-free society. But where is that happening? Every day the news says hilsa is being caught in large quantities. Through the work of hoarding syndicates, it is secretly stored in warehouses and then sold little by little only in upmarket shops in the big cities, where hilsa is available all year round. No exception to this has yet been seen.

Who is to blame? Who is behind it? Do the country's ordinary and low-income people not have the right to taste seasonal hilsa even for a single day? Under whose protection is it being illegally stored under cover of night? A system to control this must be set up quickly.

Will big hilsa be sold only in the cities' air-conditioned supermarkets? What kind of consumers are their customers? Families of ordinary salaried workers walk around the market, look, buy sarputi instead and go home, and see hilsa only in their imagination or their dreams at night. That too is the harsh reality of today's sky-high hilsa market.

At the open market in Karwan Bazar, hilsa weighing one kg sells for Tk 1,800-2,200 a kg. YouTubers throng there too, because showing pictures earns them a living. As they show pleasing pictures and spread word that prices have fallen, people crowd into the market to buy cheap hilsa. But seeing the crowds, fish sellers suddenly raise prices. There is no control over market prices there either, and many buyers are astonished.

The point is that for the past month there has been no extortion on goods trucks or hilsa trucks, and no tender manipulation. No local thug is glaring at the fish depots during the auctions. Yet the fish vanish into hoarders' warehouses, leaving small traders and ordinary consumers helpless. Action must therefore be taken soon against illegal hoarding of seasonal hilsa, and the government should arrange to sell seasonal hilsa cheaply at village markets in remote areas at this time of year.

Who does not want to taste hilsa, the national fish? The government should therefore procure seasonal hilsa and arrange for it to be sold at low prices, even for one day, to people of particular groups on production of VGF cards. Even for just one day, this could be a landmark example for people deprived of the national fish.

The writer is a professor in the Department of Social Work at the University of Rajshahi and former dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.