'Drop the English barrier’: Zoho’s Vembu says R&D must break free from language limits

Sridhar Vembu, founder of Zoho, believes India’s obsession with English is holding back its innovation potential. Reacting to a report on China’s declining interest in English, Vembu made it clear — India doesn’t need English dominance to thrive in tech. "I am right now working with extremely capable engineers on some advanced tech, and we converse in Tamil because that is what they are most comfortable with,” Vembu declared.  

Vembu, a long-time advocate of local languages in technology, suggested that linguistic barriers are stifling India's research and development (R&D) capabilities. “There is a lot of R&D talent in India if we get rid of the English barrier and the social stigma of not knowing English well,” he stated.  

According to him, English is useful, but it shouldn’t define success. “As we achieve more, Indians someday will lose this idea that English is a mark of sophistication or achievement,” he said. “It is a useful language to know, but since 95% of Indians are not fluent in English, it cannot and should not be a barrier to advancing in India.”  

“The Chinese are a major source of inspiration for me,” he said. “I am (very!) slowly learning Hindi so I can work with engineers in Hindi too.” 
  
Earlier today, Vembu spoke on China’s latest AI breakthrough - DeepSeek, saying that India too can do what China did. "This post is a must-read for every Indian engineer who asks "why can't India do what China did". Short answer: India can and it is not that hard. And let's not do this "reservation bad, government bad" etc. Chinese entrepreneurs never had it easy and still don't have it easy. We can do this in India. We WILL do this in India," he said.  

DeepSeek, a Chinese-made artificial intelligence - has stunned investors and AI players across the world, especially the US. Released on January 20, DeepSeek's latest version quickly caught the attention of AI researchers before dominating headlines worldwide. What sets it apart? The company behind DeepSeek claims it has been built at a fraction of the cost of industry giants like OpenAI—and they say it’s all because they use fewer advanced chips.