‘You, your kids should learn Kannada’: Zoho CEO’s advice for people in Bengaluru

Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu recently reacted to a post on X by sharing that people who have made Bengaluru their “home” should know how to speak Kannada. In his opinion, not doing so is “disrespectful.”
The CEO replied to a comment concerning a post where two men wore T-shirts with “Hindi National Language” written on them. The post further had a caption, “Perfect T-shirt for Bangalore trip.”
Vembu wrote, “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 added.
“I have many Kannada friends in Mumbai, living here for decades. No one can speak Marathi. Not one word. Fair?” argued an X user. Another individual posted, “You sound immature here. Being disrespectful for any language, culture is unacceptable but not learning a language is being disrespectful? Logic dies there.”
“Most Tamils and Malayali living back in Calcutta would speak Bengali fluently. One of them was my English professor, Late N Vishwanathan. He was an award-winning actor as well. Love the local language dialect if you are living for a long time. It’s fantastic,” shared a third.
A fourth wrote, “Language is a means of communication. People do whatever is needed for their survival. Isn’t this common sense? In Bengaluru, I meet more non-Kannadigas than Kannadigas. 90% of them, when they speak, use English. How do you expect someone moving to Bangalore to prioritise Kannada over English? Languages are not learnt from books, they are learnt from the surroundings.”
According to Forbes, the entrepreneur’s net worth stands at $5.8 billion. He is the founder and CEO of privately held Zoho, a company that creates cloud-based business software. He started the business as AdventNet with his two siblings and three friends. He began his career at Qualcomm in 1994 and has a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton.
What are your thoughts on Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu’s X post?