After SBI Kannada Row, Bengaluru Founder Plans To Relocate Office To Pune
"If this language nonsense is to continue, I do not want my non-Kannada speaking staff to be the next 'victim'," entrepreneur Kaushik Mukherjee wrote on X.
He said the decision stemmed from concerns raised by his employees, adding he "agreed to their [point of view]."
Today I took a decision to wind up our Bangalore office in the next 6 months and move it to Pune. If this language nonsense is to continue, I do not want my non Kannada speaking staff to be the next "victim".
This idea was mooted by the staff themselves.
I agreed to their POV. https://t.co/M9abD2OYOD
— Kaushik Mukherjee ???????? (@kush07) May 22, 2025
This came after a recent incident at an SBI branch in Bengaluru's Chandapura area, where a manager refused to speak in Kannada with a customer, saying, "This is India, I'll speak Hindi, not Kannada."
The video of the interaction went viral, drawing sharp criticism from Kannada activists and political leaders alike.
Kaushik Mukherjee's post was in response to Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, who earlier shared the video and called the manager's conduct "not acceptable."
"If you are doing customer interface work in Karnataka, especially in a sector like banking, it is important to communicate to customers in the language they know," Mr Surya wrote.
He spoke of his long-standing demand that banks and other public-facing institutions in Karnataka ensure that local-language-speaking staff are posted.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also weighed in on the SBI incident, calling the manager's behaviour "strongly condemnable" and urging the Union Finance Ministry to implement cultural and language sensitivity training for banking staff nationwide.
The manager has since been transferred, and both the bank and the manager have issued apologies.
The manager, in a statement in Kannada, promised to be more sensitive in future dealings with customers.
According to the Kannada Development Authority (KDA), there has been a growing trend of non-Kannadigas being posted in public-facing roles in banks. This, the KDA says, is creating a disconnect with local citizens who expect services in their mother tongue. As per Reserve Bank of India norms, all banks are mandated to provide services in English, Hindi, and the regional language.
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