The interview of Professor Steven Pinker (“People are safer now than they were several hundred years ago”, May 2) read along with former Governor of West Bengal M.K. Narayanan’s article (“The rocky road to 2019”, May 2) depicts sharp contrasts. While Mr. Narayanan speaks of security issues, rapes and Dalit and agrarian unrest in the country today, Professor Pinker says issues of right-wing populism and terrorism are exaggerated. The Harvard scholar seems optimistic, while Mr. Narayanan seems more realistic. If Professor Pinker is to believed, then Mr. Narayanan’s views, which are based on “news and headlines”, have to be corroborated by analysing quantitative trends over history in order to evaluate whether the apparent crises in the country are usual or something extraordinary.
Vyom Bharadvaj,
Kansal, Mohali
