DMK slams Zoho founder: Teach Hindi to your staff, not students in Tamil Nadu

DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai hit back at Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu, questioning why Tamil Nadu students should learn Hindi for business needs. Annadurai told the CEO, "Teach Hindi to your staff if your business needs it."

In Short

• Zoho’s Vembu calls Hindi a business necessity in Tamil Nadu
• DMK’s Saravanan tells Vembu: “Teach Hindi to your staff”
• Debate reignites over Hindi’s role in Tamil Nadu’s workforce

DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai hit back at Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu’s call for Tamil Nadu’s engineers and entrepreneurs to learn Hindi, questioning why students in the state should prioritise the language for business needs.

In a post on X, Annadurai wrote, “Teach Hindi to your staff if your business needs it. Why should students in Tamil Nadu study Hindi because your business needs it? Inversely, you can request the Union Govt to ensure rudimentary knowledge of English to school kids there, which would solve the problem. The only issue with these types is that they imagine ‘they are twice as smart’ than others. Pathetic.”

His remarks came in response to Vembu’s argument that the lack of Hindi proficiency was a “serious handicap” for Tamil Nadu’s engineers in business dealings. In a post on X, Vembu stated that many of Zoho’s engineers work with clients in Hindi-speaking regions such as Delhi, Mumbai, and Gujarat, and that not knowing the language often created communication barriers.

“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,” Vembu said.

He further elaborated on his own experience of learning the language, saying, “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 per cent of what is spoken.”

Vembu urged entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu to embrace Hindi, stating, “As India is a fast-growing economy, engineers and entrepreneurs in Tamil Nadu will be smart to learn Hindi. Ignore the politics, let us learn the language!”

However, his comments have sparked a wider debate, with many questioning the necessity of prioritising Hindi when English remains the global business language. This comes amid growing concerns over the Centre’s three-language policy which the DMK-led Tamil Nadu government calls “imposition of Hindi” on the state.