Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu has reignited the language debate online with his recent statement advising entrepreneurs and engineers in Tamil Nadu to learn Hindi for career advancement. Taking to X, Mr Vembu highlighted the advantages of language flexibility, especially for those working with clients from Delhi, Mumbai and Gujarat. He stated that not knowing Hindi is a "serious handicap". He also revealed that he has personally been learning the language for five years and can now understand about 20% of spoken conversations.
"As Zoho grows rapidly in India, we have rural engineers in Tamil Nadu working closely with customers in Mumbai and Delhi - so much of our business is driven from these cities and from Gujarat. Rural jobs in Tamil Nadu depend on us serving those customers well," Mr Vembu wrote, adding "Not knowing Hindi is often a serious handicap for us in Tamil Nadu."
"It is smart for us to learn Hindi. I have learned to read Hindi haltingly in the last 5 years and I can now understand about 20% of what is spoken," the Zoho CEO shared. "As India is a fast growing economy, engineers and entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu will be smart to learn Hindi," he said, advising people to ignore the politics of language.
Since being shared, Mr Vembu's post has accumulated more than 1.4 million views and has reignited the language debate.
"In the same manner if Zoho deals with global clients from Korea, Japan, will they expect their employees learn Korean, Japanese as well?. English is the global language. Also in the era of AI tools learning multiple languages won't make much benefit since we have lot of language tools for interface. A tech company preaching language politics doesn't sound good," wrote one user.
"Totally agree with your POV..! Those dependent on Hindi must learn Hindi ! By that logic, those dependent on resources and systems of host state must learn language of that land too..! But do you see that happening ? Also, it's not just about language..it's about politics..!" commented another.
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"Completely agree. On the professional front, I have worked across India. And learning Hindu as a second language really helped me to interact with ppl across India," shared a third user.
"People should learn language to get ahead. People should also learn Tamil or Kanada if they want good jobs in tech as most of the jobs is in the Bengaluru and Chennai," one user said.
"Knowing multiple languages isn't just a skill-it's an asset that breaks down regional and political barriers. The more, the better. Science backs it too: multilingualism lowers the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease," commented another.
