Bengaluru Resident Confronts Man For Not Learning Kannada Despite Living In City For 12 Years | WATCH

A video capturing a tense exchange between a Bengaluru local and a non-Kannada speaker has gone viral on social media, igniting a range of reactions.

The clip, shared on X by user @ManjuKBye, shows a Bengaluru resident confronting another person over his inability to speak Kannada, despite having lived and worked in Karnataka for 12 years. The local man accuses the non-Kannada speaker of "disrespecting" the local language and culture.

Photo Credit: https://x.com/ManjuKBye

"You want a job here, you want a salary here, but you don't want the language here," he says. The Bengaluru native then concludes, "At least learn Kannada, okay? This is Bengaluru, not Mumbai or Gujarat," and ends with, "This is our state, our India."

The X user who shared the video captioned it: "12 years in Karnataka and yet to understand and learn Kannada? That says only Two things, Zero Curiosity and willingness to Learn, Arrogance towards Local Culture and Language."

Since its posting, the video has garnered over 77,000 views and sparked a lively debate in the comments, with many criticising the local man's approach as a form of language imposition.

One commenter responded, "Who the hell are you to tell us to learn Kannada? It's none of your business. It's our choice whether to learn it or not. You don't have the right to make it compulsory. This isn't arrogance, it's his choice. You live in Andhra or Telangana, and we never force you to learn Telugu. This is India, not Afghanistan."

Another person commented, "While it's good to learn the local language and lovely to interact in a local tongue with those who don't speak other languages, it's certainly not mandatory. If he's lived 12 years in the city without learning the language, it also suggests he didn't feel the 'need', and not knowing it has clearly not been a handicap."

One user stated, "Knowing English or Hindi should suffice. Learning the local language is entirely up to an individual, even if they've lived in the region for 65 years. These local language enforcers need to move on."

Another added, "This is harassment on the street. The guy filming this should be arrested."

Others shared personal experiences, with one user saying, "Sometimes it's really hard to learn a new language as an adult-it's a genuine problem. I've lived in Maharashtra for the past 20 years and haven't learned Marathi, yet no one has harassed me for not knowing it."