New Delhi, May 22 -- A video of a State Bank of India (SBI) branch manager refusing to speak Kannada with a customer in Karnataka has gone viral, igniting a fierce language debate across social media. The non-Kannadiga manager, stationed in Bengaluru Rural's Chandapura, was caught on camera insisting on speaking Hindi despite repeated requests from a customer to converse in Kannada - the state's official language. The SBI branch manager has now apologised in a separate video as seen on social media.

The dispute unfolded at an SBI branch in Chandapura, Bengaluru Rural, when a customer insisted that the bank official communicate in Kannada, citing the state's linguistic pride.

The manager, however, responded in Hindi, stating that she liv...