Sridhar Vembu says Zoho employees don't need to be fluent in English for most jobs

Zoho co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu on Tuesday hit out at "elite India" for its obsession with English language and declared that at his company, employees do not need to be fluent in English.

"Elite India has the bias that people who do not speak/read/write fluent English (that would be at least 95 percent of our population) are stupid," he tweeted. "We can only make progress when we get rid of that English obsession. At Zoho, we consciously do not require English fluency for most jobs."

Sridhar Vembu was responding in defense of Assam's Himanta Biswa Sarma who is being trolled and called a "copy-paste CM" after a video of him copying texts from a page while filling details in a visitor's book went viral.

Responding to the video, Sarma acknowledged he went to an Assamese medium school and has little knowledge of English as well as Hindu languages. But, in a "humble way", Himanta Biswa Sarma said he was trying his best to be proficient in both languages.

"I went to an Assamese medium school and am trying my best to learn Hindi and English in my own humble way. I must admit that I do not know English and Hindi very well, and I have no hesitation in admitting it," he tweeted.