Given how obsessed this column (and this columnist in particular) has been with biryani over the last two decades, you will imagine my delight each year when World Biryani Day comes around.

Yes, World Biryani Day. It is celebrated every year on the first Sunday in July. And if previous experience is anything to go by, then biryani sales will go through the roof on that day as they do every World Biryani Day, as people order in biryani, go to restaurants to enjoy it or even cook it at home.

But even without the festivities, biryani is already the single most ordered dish across delivery platforms. It is now a pan-Indian craze, as popular in Kochi as it is in Kanpur or Kolkata.

There was a time when biryani was only associated with India’s Muslim minority. It may still be the most popular dish among Indian Muslims: Nearly every Muslim community will have its own style of biryani no matter which corner of India you go to.

But the most interesting development of recent times is how secular the character of biryani consumption has become. It could not have become India’s most popular dish unless it was also embraced by non-Muslims. At a time of communal polarisation and attempts to push such vegetarian alternatives as khichdi, biryani has helped us rise above our differences and has united India’s diverse communities. It is hard to think of a better example of the triumph of India’s gastronomical pluralism.

One reason why Indians have embraced biryani over the last couple of decades is because every city seems to have rediscovered its own biryani.

The rivalry between Lucknow and Hyderabad over biryani is traditional but this century has seen the rise of new regional rivalries. When I lived in Kolkata (roughly 1986 to 1999), the biryani was always terrific and there were many restaurants that were famous for it. But it was not regarded as the city’s most renowned dish, on par with the puchka. It was not even regarded as a distinctive characteristic of Kolkata’s cuisine like say, the Nizam roll.

No longer. Now Bengalis will fight you to the death for the honour of their biryani. They will say that Kolkata biryani is the best in the world. They will trace its origins to Wajid Ali Shah, but will be offended if you suggest that it is basically a variation on the biryanis of Awadh (where Wajid Ali Shah came from) with cheaper ingredients (potatoes, eggs etc) and less of the perfumed subtlety that is the hallmark of the Awadh style. Potatoes, they will insist, and were a rare and expensive delicacy in the 19th century, much prized by Wajid Ali Shah. (They were not.)

Similarly, in Chennai, where the residents have access to many wonderful local biryanis, the most popular biryani (there are now biryani places at every corner) is a variant of North Indian biryani made with long-grained rice, not the short-grained regional rices. I asked chef ‘Nat’ Natarajan, the legendary Chennai food guru, who spent years with the Taj group, about this and he said the current craze was “based on new biryani-styles invented at restaurants and not on traditional recipes.” And yet, people in Chennai will take fevered pride in this newly evolved biryani.

In Mumbai, the best biryanis have always been made by Gujarati Muslims (who own many of the more famous biryani places) though perhaps because Gujarati and biryani do not sound like they belong in the same sentence the origins – Khoja, Memon Bohra, etc – were rarely acknowledged. Even so, the people of Mumbai will fight for Bombay Biryani.

Biryani’s popularity is also due to the boom in delivery. If you want to order a meal at home, nothing works better than biryani. It is a one-pot dish and though you can add extras (onions, salan etc.), you don’t need to order as many dishes as you would normally with an Indian meal. In that sense, biryani is the more sophisticated sibling of the masala dosa — another dish that can be eaten on its own and is often ordered as a takeaway or a delivery special.

Another reason for biryani’s increasing popularity is the gradual shift to rice in many middle-class households. Rice is easier to cook, and to then store, than most wheat-based alternatives: chapatis, parathas, pooris etc. This is an important consideration in households where both husband and wife work. And while rice sales continue to rise, the real boom is in the branded rice segment preferred by the middle-class. If you are cooking rice, then a one-pot dish like biryani is an attractive option.

It’s also interesting that long-grained rice (ideally Basmati) is becoming the biryani rice of choice all over India. Kolkata biryani has always been made with Basmati. Mumbai biryanis are traditionally made with long-grained rice. So are Awadhi biryani and Hyderabadi biryani. But even in Chennai, the preference of biryani restaurants and shops is Basmati.

For India’s Basmati companies, this is boom time. The traditional buttery, aromatic Basmati has always been popular with purists, but over the years, Indian food scientists have developed new strains of Basmati, which are easier to cultivate and are therefore not only less expensive for customers but also offer higher returns to farmers. That has further fuelled the long-grained Basmati biryani boom and led to its spread into non-traditional markets.

I asked Ritesh Arora, CEO of LT Foods, India and Asia, owners of the rice brand Daawat, how the boom had affected his sector. “Great biryani begins with exceptional rice,” he responded. The company’s decision, years ago, to position itself at the vanguard of the biryani boom has contributed to Daawat’s dominance in the Basmati sector. “We take pride in contributing to the biryani boom by supplying the finest biryani varieties”, he said. The company’s strategy had been “to elevate this cherished dish and to find new biryani fans across diverse markets in India and abroad.”

It has worked for LT Foods and I imagine other rice companies feel the same way. One of the more welcome aspects of the biryani boom has been the renewed focus on Basmati. Along with tea, Basmati is one of the few Indian crops to be so highly regarded across the world. It cannot legally be grown outside of the subcontinent and every new Indian strain is DNA-tested to ensure that it is pure Basmati.

So there will be a lot to celebrate on World Biryani Day: Indian pluralism, national unity in gastronomy, the triumph of Basmati and biryani itself, one of the world’s greatest rice dishes.

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