India’s linguistic diversity isn’t just a cultural footnote—it’s the bedrock of its identity. Yet today, this diversity is under siege, not by external forces, but by the arrogance of those who mistake dominance for unity and ignorance for pragmatism. The recent uproar over a State Bank of India manager’s refusal to speak Kannada in Bengaluru isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a symptom of a deeper rot: a systemic dismissal of India’s regional languages, fueled by a toxic cocktail of entitlement, political opportunism, and a colonial hangover that privileges Hindi and English as “superior” tongues. This isn’t just about language—it’s about power, dignity, and who gets to define what it means to be Indian.
The Bengaluru Debacle: A Case Study in Arrogance
The SBI incident wasn’t a misunderstanding—it was a blatant act of linguistic imperialism. When a bank manager in Karnataka, a state where Kannada is enshrined as the official language, declares, “This is India, I will speak Hindi,” it reveals a mindset that equates Hindi with patriotism and regional languages with provincialism. This is not ignorance; it’s aggression. It’s the same mindset that has, for decades, treated non-Hindi speakers as second-class citizens in their own country. The manager’s subsequent half-hearted apology, delivered in broken Kannada, only underscored the contempt: a performative gesture devoid of respect.
But let’s be clear: this is not about one employee. This is about institutions—banks, governments, corporations—that prioritize bureaucratic convenience over cultural responsibility. The Reserve Bank of India mandates that banks employ staff proficient in regional languages, yet compliance is lax, and accountability nonexistent. When a farmer in rural Karnataka walks into a bank, he shouldn’t need a translator to access basic services. To deny him that right is to perpetuate economic and social apartheid.
The Myth of “National Unity” and the Tyranny of Hindi
The argument that Hindi unites India is a lie. Hindi unites only those who speak it—a privilege concentrated in North India. For the rest, it’s a weapon of exclusion. The three-language policy, ostensibly designed to promote multilingualism, has become a Trojan horse for Hindi imposition. In Karnataka alone, 90,000 students fail Hindi annually, forced to drop out of school because of a language they neither need nor want. Meanwhile, Bangladesh, which prioritizes education in its mother tongue, has overtaken India in human development indices. Coincidence? Hardly. When you force a child to learn a language that holds no relevance to their daily life, you stifle their potential.
The hypocrisy is staggering. The same elites who wax poetic about “unity in diversity” in English—a language less than 10% of Indians speak fluently—dismiss regional languages as backward. But let’s ask: Why must a Tamil nurse in Delhi learn Hindi to keep her job, while a Hindi-speaking banker in Bengaluru refuses to learn even basic Kannada? Why is fluency in French or German celebrated as “cosmopolitan,” but speaking Tamil or Telugu reduced to “regional pride”? This isn’t about practicality—it’s about hierarchy.
The Economic Reckoning: Pride vs. Profit
Detractors will cry, “Language wars scare investors!” But this is a false binary. Bengaluru’s rise as India’s tech capital wasn’t built on Hindi or English alone—it thrived because it welcomed talent from across India and the world, creating a mosaic of cultures. The real threat to business isn’t linguistic pride; it’s linguistic disrespect. When a tech founder threatens to move operations to Pune over “language nonsense,” he reveals his own prejudice. Pune, where Marathi activists have long policed linguistic compliance, is no utopia. The problem isn’t Kannada; it’s the refusal to acknowledge that language is more than a transaction—it’s identity.
Businesses that fail to adapt deserve to leave. If a company cannot hire local staff, train employees in basic phrases, or use translation tools to serve Kannada speakers, it has no place in Karnataka. The market will correct itself: for every arrogant founder who flees, ten others will recognize the value of cultural competence. Japan and Germany built global empires without abandoning their languages. Why must India kneel to the myth that English—or Hindi—is the price of progress?
The Road Ahead: Reclaiming India’s Linguistic Soul
The solution is neither assimilation nor isolation—it’s respect. Banks must enforce RBI mandates to hire local-language speakers. Schools must teach children to take pride in their mother tongues while mastering English for global opportunities. Politicians must stop weaponizing language for votes and start investing in grassroots education that empowers, rather than alienates.
To the Hindi apologists: Your language is not under threat. Hindi cinema dominates our screens, Hindi media monopolizes our airwaves, and Hindi speakers dominate our bureaucracy. The real threat is to the 95% of Indians who speak other languages, yet are told daily that their voices matter less.
India’s greatness lies in its ability to hold contradictions: to be a Tamilian and Indian, to speak Konkani and global. To erase these layers in the name of unity is to erase India itself. The battle for Kannada is the battle for every language silenced by arrogance. Let this be our awakening: a nation that cannot speak to its people in their mother tongue has already lost its soul.
The choice is ours: Embrace diversity as strength, or let arrogance fracture the world’s oldest civilization.