‘Living In Bengaluru And Not Learning Kannada Disrespectful’: Zoho CEO Sparks Language Debate – News18

Last Updated:November 17, 2024, 10:01 IST

Internet was divided on language debate sparked by Zoho CEO who called it disrespectful not to learn Kannada, living in Bengaluru.

The language debate is back in trends on social media, sparked this time around by Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu who urged those who made “Bengaluru their home” to learn Kannada, while also describing doing the opposite as “disrespectful”.

Vembu’s remarks came in reaction to a post on X where two men put on T-shirts with a “Hindi National Language” print. The post, which was later deleted, captioned, “Perfect T-shirt for Bangalore trip”.

Response To The X Post

Moneycontrol journalist Chandra R Srikanth reacted to the post and underlined the irony behind people eager to learn foreign languages while flying abroad and failing to learn the local language of a state in India.

“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,” she tweeted.

Putting out a disclaimer, Srikanth said that though her mother tongue is not Kannada, she has tried to learn it over the years and her efforts have been lauded by the locals.

“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,” she wrote.

Sridhar Vembu Reacts

Vembu agreed to the journalist’s sentiment and said that all those who make “Bengaluru your home” should learn Kannada.

“I agree with this sentiment. If you make Bengaluru your home, you should learn Kannada and your kids should learn Kannada. 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,” he wrote.

Users React To Language Debate

His remarks sparked an online debate pitting learning a language as a compulsion against choice.

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

“Disrespectful? The problem is that an IT professional working in Chennai for 3 years could move to Bengaluru to work there for next 5 years and then to Hyderabad for next 2 years. So, by the OP logic they should be learning Tamil, Kannada and Telugu in these years and then finally settle to their hometown somewhere in Maharashtra and not use these languages ever again,” another one wrote.

“Great Sir. Let’s devide 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,” a user said.