When the founder of Zoho Sridhar Vembu says that Hindi is the “interconnection of” the Indian customer, it does not make a political statement – it offers practical business board. In a country where the norm is a multilingualism norm, Hindi claims that Hindi has a unique position not only in the north, but across urban and non-handing regions. For business leaders, he says, fluency is no sense – effort is.
“You can get with Hindi in Hyderabad or Bhubaneswar or in Calcutta,” he wrote about X. “Unlike English, no one in India judges you to speak broken Hindsky – appreciate your efforts.”
The post of vembu emerged from the real business interaction. “Last week, I met an intelligent businessman Odiya (and a customer) from a small village and spoke and stopped English, but his Hindi is quite decent,” he shared. “He was forced to use English to talk to me. My speaking stopping Hindi mixed with English words would be easier for us to do business. That's what I try to get for.”
For Vemba, there is a business to meet the customer where they are. “In Tamil Nadu we have learned English to undertake globally because you speak the language of your customer. You will not get dictated what the customer is talking about.”
Now, with the globalization “otherwise”, he says that the Indian domestic market of 4 $+ trillion is to the center of attention – and Hindi is in his opinion a bridge. “This is how a practical entrepreneur thinks,” he wrote. “You can attack me with everything you want, but if you are an entrepreneur, you would be smart to accept this advice!”
He also addressed critics directly: “I am generally immune to ruthlessly assault, so thank you for wasting time to find out how to get ahead in life.”
The author and philanthropist of Sudha Murta recently echoed a similar view. “We knew Hindi … We enjoyed beautiful movies … I've never faced difficulty,” NDTV said about her time in Tamil Nadu.
For Murty, the tongue is not a battlefield – it's a bridge. “Children can learn any number of languages … all of us are islands and the only bridge is the tongue. So I want to have many bridges – and it's good for my work.”
