• Source:JND
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 Amid an ongoing debate between the importance of learning regional language Kannada and enforcement of it forcefully on outsiders in Karnataka, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho said that the people who have made Bengaluru their home should know how to speak Kannada. He stated that he encourages his employees to learn the regional language, as not speaking the language where you live is "disrespectful."

“If you make Bengaluru your home, you should learn Kannada, and your kids should learn Kannada,” Vembu wrote in a post on X. “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.

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It all started with a post on X, in which two men wore T-shirts with “Hindi National Language” written on them. The post further had a caption, “Perfect T-shirt for Bangalore trip.” A user, while sharing their post, wrote that people are keen to learn foreign languages when they go to work there. However, they do not want to learn Indian regional languages. 

"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. 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. 

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The post sparked a debate on social media as several of the users criticised Vembu for his post. A user criticised him for allegedly dividing the country on the basis of language. "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," he wrote.

There are several instances where netizens locked their horns on social media over this issue. While one faction claims that it is necessary for the outsiders to learn the regional language while residing there, the other group says that most of the employees already know English and also emphasise that Hindi is our national language.