Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu advises people living in Karnataka to learn Kannada; netizens say, ’let’s divide country’

Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has asked people living in Bengaluru to learn Kannada and teach their kids the local language, too, drawing strong reactions from people on social media.

“I agree with this sentiment. If you make Bengaluru your home, you should learn Kannada and your kids should learn Kannada,” Vembu wrote on X, adding, “Not doing so after living many years in Bengaluru is disrespectful."

"I often request our employees in Chennai coming from other states to make an effort to learn Tamil after they come here,” the Zoho CEO said.

His recent comments were a reaction to a post in which an X user questioned people for not learning a local language. The post included a picture of two men wearing T-shirts with “Hindi National Language” written on them. The picture was captioned with “Perfect T-shirt for Bangalore trip.”

“People won't think for a minute before buying English to French, English to Spanish and English to Italian dictionaries while flying abroad but God forbid if you tell them to try and be courteous enough to learn a local language in India. There are folks who go on saying Kannada gothila (I don't know Kannada) for years like it is a badge of honour,” the X post said.

“Full disclaimer: My mother tongue is not Kannada but I picked up the language in the last decade that I lived here. My Kannada is not perfect and I still struggle with full sentences but people really appreciate it that you are at least making an effort,” the post read.

However, several social media users have criticised Vembu’s stance and questioned the need to learn Kannada for living in Karnataka.

“I have many Kannada friends in Mumbai, living here for decades. No one can speak Marathi. Not one word. Fair?” commented one user.

Another user said, “Great Sir. Let's divide the country and make borders with requirement of IELTS kind certificate in the local language for entrance. Just before that the tagline of our country 'Unity in diversity' should be immersed in Ganga in Varanasi.”

“You sound immature here. Being Disrespectful for any language, culture is unacceptable but not learning a language is being disrespectful? Logic dies there,” commented one user.

“Language is a means of communication. People do whatever is needed for their survival. Isn't this a common sense? In Bengaluru, I meet more non Kannadigas than Kannadigas. 90% of them, when they speak, use English,” another user said.