Comedy of the Week - Ahir Shah's Seven Blunders of the World

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Inspired by an email from his 74 year-old father, comedian Ahir Shah introduces us to the The Seven Blunders of the World.In 1925, Mahatma Gandhi published an article in the journal Young India, outlining what he called the Seven Social Sins. They were wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice, and politics without principle.One hundred years on, the world is a very different place (this was written on a computer, for crying out loud!). Yet, Ahir reckons Gandhi's century-old list of the great societal blunders still feels relevant today. Could they teach us anything going forward?Join Ahir (and sometimes his dad, who started this whole thing), as he explores these seven blunders through his trademark combination of philosophical inquiry, political vigour and sweet gags.Created and Performed by Ahir Shah Additional Material by Glenn Moore Cast: Vikram Shah and Meera Syal Producers: Daisy Knight and Jules Lom An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts Hello I'm Ahir Shah. I'm an award winning stand up comedian. Hear that? That's an audience laughing at some of my award winning stand up comedy. I'm also a writer. Onions. Imodium. That was just me doing my shopping list, but I do proper writing too. For example, this is a theatrical monologue I once wrote. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the onions and emodium of outrageous fortune.

But I'm not here to talk about any of that. Over three episodes, I'm here to tell you about society's seven biggest pitfalls according to Mahatma Gandhi. Heard of him? Can I, a stand-up comedian who looks like Gandhi and sounds like his enemies, solve seven seemingly intractable social problems where the Mahatma failed? No. And can I do it in three half-hour radio comedies, a format he didn't know existed and would definitely have disapproved of? Again, no. Nevertheless, you're listening to the seven blunders of the world.

Seven blunders of the world. A few months ago, my dad forwarded me an email. Because he's more than a parent, he's an acquaintance. Picture the scene. I was on a train when suddenly... BEEP That's just a sound effect to set the mood. Obviously, my phone didn't actually make a noise. I'm 34 years old,

meaning I'd rather eat glass than hear any phone make any sound whatsoever. Anyway, my 74 year old father forwarded me an email, which probably sounded something like this. Wait, did I send or delete? By the way, that new voice is my actual dad, Vikram. Hello, everyone. You'll hear from him occasionally throughout these three episodes.

Partly because the idea for this series came from an email he sent me, but mainly because the whole involving a parent thing has gone incredibly well for Ramesh. Ahir? Yes, Dad? Do you think if you had gone to private school, we would be doing this on something good, like television? Well, Dad, we'll never know. But it sure as hell worked for the White Halls.

When I got this email, I knew two things immediately. Firstly, because it was from Dad, I knew it was going to be about India. My dad is an Indian man who was born in India, is obsessed with India, remains a citizen of India and is all round so willfully foreign that sometimes even I want to deport him. Indian thought process would say the reason you feel that way is because you… Yes, yes, thank you, thank you. Secondly, from the forward, forward, forward in the subject heading, I knew it was one

of those annoying chain emails my dad is fond of. But that meant I had to pay attention. Because if you don't pay attention to a chain email from a parent, there are consequences. And I don't mean consequences like… If you don't forward this email in seven days, you'll never get with your crash. I'm talking far more grave consequences, like… If you don't respond to this email within seven days, your dad will call you on the phone. I will call you on the phone! A phone call from a parent when no one's died. That other new voice is the actor Meera Sahil, by the way.

You may know Meera Sahil from the groundbreaking series, Goodness Gracious Me, which was my favourite thing to watch as a child and probably why I ended up doing this for a living. Really? I always assumed it was because of unresolved, deep-seated psychological issues stemming from your childhood. Oh, that too, naturally. You're both responsible. You're welcome. Crucially, Meera aunty is not my mum. My mum is a 67-year-old retired public sector worker who is also in

receipt of a full state pension, which means we couldn't afford her. But back to the story. I opened dad's email. Hmm. Gandhi's Seven Blunders of the World. What's that then? It turns out the Seven Blunders of the World is a list published 100 years ago by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, more commonly known as Mahatma, which was sort of like his rap name, in a journal he edited called Young India. Now, I've always admired the Mahatma, to the extent that Young India is actually my rap name. This list outlines seven social sins, society-wide problems that, according to Gandhi, harm society

as a whole. It wasn't like that old list of seven deadly sins that you learned as a kid. If you're anything like me, when you learned that one you were probably like... What the hell does avarice mean? Hold on, this is just a list of all fun! These weren't just individual words for individual people. They felt more like challenges, provocations to society at large. And the more I thought about them, the more it seemed like many of these blunders, decried as the seven pitfalls of society in 1925, wouldn't seem out of place in 2025. Listen for yourself. According to Gandhi and read by my dad, these seven social sins, the seven blunders of the world, are I confess, I confess, I put a fun one in. Religion without sacrifice. But seriously, if you think about it, how often have you heard people complain about exactly these

blunders being the source of all our ills in the present day? Let's face it, a century on every article in The Guardian may as well still be grouped under… Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, Trump, recipes, spoot. Gandhi spent decades thinking about these social sins. They're not something he's particularly well known for. That's right, my family are sort of Gandhi hipsters.

We're into the B-sides, the deep cuts. We are lots of his vinyl. But they were clearly deeply important to him. So important that decades later, in 1948, he wrote them out once again to give to his grandson on what turned out to be the last day the two would spend together. Shortly afterwards, Gandhi was assassinated, and he was only one day away from completing Dry January. I did a bit of a brainstorm – sorry, can't say brainstorm – mind map about these blunders. I had so many questions. Could thinking about what they may have meant then, and what they mean in the present day,

improve societies going forward? Humanity is going to have to spend the next hundred years clearing up the mess of the last hundred. Could a list from 1925 somehow help? And if Sky are still looking for travel shows, does it have to be with my dad specifically, or can it be with someone else's dad, because I really like Nish's dad? I had questions, I needed answers, and so it was that I dove into Mahatma Gandhi's Seven Blunders of the World. I began my investigations where any amateur student of anything begins – Wikipedia.

Ah, that's disappointing. There, I learnt firstly – and somewhat awkwardly for the whole premise of this series – that Gandhi didn't actually come up with the Seven Blunders of the World himself. Then again, he didn't invent not hitting people, either. He just massively popularised it. Back in 1925, the Seven Blunders of the World were actually the brainchild – sorry, can't say brainchild, mind-bastard – of the Christian socialist clergyman Frederick Lewis Donaldson. Gandhi somehow heard about them and republished them six months later without proper attribution. Presumably, at the time, the irony of being an Indian nicking

something from a Brit without a proper thank you was simply too delicious to resist. Donaldson put the shift in, but Gandhi was getting all the credit. In some ways, this seemed the perfect intro to… The first blunder of the world? Wealth without work. This blunder seems pretty straightforward. It's castigating unearned wealth and saying it breeds societal problems. Most of us, to some extent, myself included, agree with this. Then again, most of us, to some extent, myself included, love nothing more than watching those period dramas that basically fetishise the idle rich. Indeed, if I were to ask you to imagine living a hundred years ago,

I bet some of you are picturing a life like… Ah, I shall marry Lord Earlston. How nice that war is over forever! But realistically, for almost all of us, it would have been more like… I'm about to die from an arse-based illness. Things are so much better now, aren't they? I'm a pretty normal middle-class guy, and only last week I ordered a pizza online using my fridge! Now, it didn't work, and I don't know what I was thinking – it's a regular fridge,

it can't do that – but the fact I felt it was possible shows how far we've come. In the UK, GDP per capita has increased at least six-fold over the last century, and things that were only available to a select few a hundred years ago are now commonplace – washing machines, vacuum cleaners, teeth! So things are clearly different to how they were in 1925. Sure, there are some incredibly rich people, but nowadays I assume most of them have actually done something to get there. I may not like the way James Dyson complains about 20% inheritance tax being levied on his 33,000 acres of farmland, but I do have to admit

that if it weren't for him, I'd be recording this with wet hands. Essentially, I assumed that compared to times gone by, things nowadays are more tilted towards working people. The working people. Working person. Working people. Working people. And that made me feel reassured, because I am a working people. Working person. Working people. Working people. And that made me feel reassured because I am a working person. Working people. Working people. Working people.

Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. Working people. The government may not always be able to define what working person actually means. People who go out to work. Chancellor, thank you. But you know who can define it? HMRC. And that's why I'm recording this line on a business trip at Alton Towers.

I imagine most of you listening are also working people. If not, it's probably just because you've retired after decades of having been a working person and are now using your considerable energies to prevent nationally critical infrastructure being built anywhere remotely near you. Basically, I thought the society depicted in the period dramas was long gone. But a few days after Rachel Reeves' budget in October, the Sunday Times politics newsletter landed in my inbox, which included the line, The plan for inheritance tax will particularly hit aristocrats who own 30% of the land in England. 30% of the land in England is pretty much owned by the same families who owned it in

1925, who pretty much owned it in 1825, who pretty much… You get the idea! No wonder that years ago, when asked by the Financial Times what advice he had for young entrepreneurs, the late Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, replied, Make sure they have an ancestor who is a very close friend of William the Conqueror! I doubt this advice would work for me, though it's worth checking. Dad, have I got any ancestors who were very close friends of William the Conqueror? Hmm. I once beat someone called William at the Conquerors.

But you grew up in India. There were no Conquerors. Or Williams. This was last year. No luck then. The idol Aristotle might be an image we associate with the past, but the idea of wealth without work and its attendant problems has been a resurgent theme in modern economics. In his book, Capital in the 21st Century, French economist Thomas Piketty argued rich countries were returning to pre-first world war levels of internal economic inequality. Essentially, money is making money faster than labour can make money. Inequality is getting baked in, like shortbread. Extra layers

of richness are being put on top of what's already rich, like millionaires' shortbread. When it first came out, I wanted to read this book and find out more about economic inequality. Unfortunately, it cost £30 and I couldn't afford it. Here's a snippet I found online. Whenever the rate of return on capital is significant… Sorry, can I just interrupt real quick? Yeah, what? Not trying to tell you how to do your job, no disrespect.

I just… could you do it… like… Frenchly? Frenchly? You know what I mean. Fine. Whenever the rate of return on capital is significantly and durably higher than the growth rate of the economy, it is all but inevitable that inheritance of fortunes predominates over saving. That's great. But can you throw in a how you say?

How you say? You know how sometimes French people go, Oh, you see? Mm-hmm, sure. This in one sense implies that the past tends to, oh you see, devour. Excellent. Devour the future. Wealth originating in the past automatically grows more rapidly than wealth stemming from work.

End of preview to read more Joined Kindle Unlimited. Basically, wealth from the past is compounding too quickly for work in the present to keep up. But just saying it like that lacks a certain… Je ne sais quoi. Merci beaucoup! This might all seem pretty abstract, but there's a practical day-to-day life example that's increasingly shaping modern Britain. Fortunately, it's centred on every British person's favourite thing to talk about – house prices! Hear that? People love it!

Listen, the current value of UK housing stock stands at roughly 9 trillion quid. That's right! At least some of you listening to this are likely to be older people living in the southeast of England who own your home outright. And if that's you, congrats! This isn't a criticism. I would never criticise you because, by God, you guys write in. Plus, given my own parents are now mortgage-free in a two-bed flat by the M25, I'd basically

be slagging them off too. But for some of you, it's possible that the house you're sat in right now has quote-unquote earned more than you did across your entire working life. This real terms hyperinflation, substantially outstripping wage growth is, let's face it, wealth without work. And partly because of this, the next few decades will see the greatest generational wealth transfer in British history. You're not getting anything from me, Ahir. I spent it all on conkers, baby. William! Do you hear me, William? Meet me tomorrow morning. Junction 18, conkers at dawn.

Sorry guys. Turns out my dad and this William guy have a deeply un-Hindu level of beef. For many young people these days, achieving even pretty modest life goals might have less to do with the work you put in, or even the work your parents put in, and more to do with whether or not those parents happened to buy a winning lottery ticket in the 90s. A hundred years have passed and a lot's changed, but you can see why we might still think of wealth without work as a great social blunder. But can anything be done? Some call for much higher rates of inheritance tax. Others say

that's antithetical to human nature. Me? I think the current system seems about right. My parents are married, so the first million conkers I inherit are tax free. You will get my conkers from my cold dead hands. Damn right I will. Because yes, wealth without work is problematic, sure, but also I'd be a hypocrite in a heartbeat. Specifically, my parents' last heartbeats. If someone were to give me a million conkers for doing Jack, I'd be absolutely thrilled. Maybe we can't beat the blunders of the world, but if you can't beat them, join them! Who cares, really? Every man for himself. Damn the consequences. How bad is it?

The second blunder of the world? Pleasure without conscience. Hmm. Seems like these things might all be linked, eh? So that's Gandhi's second social sin. Pleasure without conscience. In short, I guess, having fun no matter what. It's being at the front of the pub queue ordering a round of cocktails when they've just called last orders.

For espresso martinis please. Alright, but then that's it for everyone. Woo! Oh come on. It's being the guy at paintball who has their own gun. We just wanted to have a nice time. It's thoughtlessness basically. We try not to, yet we all do it. But what does it mean on a society-wide scale? And is there any way around it?

I think out of all of the seven blunders, society-wide, pleasure without conscience is the hardest to avoid in the contemporary world. In fact, it's probably harder now than it was a hundred years ago, even on an individual level. I mean, what was the wildest thing you could do in 1925? Read Mrs Dalloway twice? Don't get me wrong, I don't think people nowadays are somehow worse than people a century ago. In fact, I'd probably say people are better now. 2025 may be hardly utopian, but like, the most famous autobiography published in 1925 was by literal Hitler. And I'm not saying that in an annoying Everything I don't like is literally Hitler! Sort of way. I'm saying that Mayenkampf was published in 1925 and that's the actual

autobiography of literal Hitler. Reading that twice is even more concerning than a cheeky Dalloway double. But think about it. The sort of life Gandhi advocated was one of small scales and self-denial. Cottage industries, village government, simple diets, and absolutely no sex whatsoever. He was a very austere, strict, and in certain ways deeply weird guy. But while that lifestyle was hard then, it's practically impossible now, because rather than being increasingly small-scale and localised, everything's expanded and globalised, and the results have been extraordinary.

When my dad was born in 1950, there were only 2 billion people on Earth. There are now over 8 billion, though admittedly he's only responsible for two of those additions. That I know of. The global population has quadrupled in his lifetime, yet over the same period the total number of people living in absolute poverty worldwide, not the percentage, the total number has halved. Though it's due to increase by one soon.

Why? After I have stolen William's lunch money. Absolute poverty! How much is William spending on lunch? Nevertheless, these are incredible achievements. Especially in the rich world, the fulfilment of our most basic needs and wants has become simultaneously simpler and more diffuse. But it can feel like our most mundane actions now have ripple effects almost unthinkable in 1925. A few years ago I was in the co-op, and I like going to the co-op because it's a bit more ethical.

I needed to buy some tea bags, and Typhoo tea bags were on sale, cheaper than own brand. Get in. Now, I couldn't see a Fair Trade logo on the box, and I wanted Fair Trade because it seems more ethical. However, I could see a Rainforest Alliance logo and I didn't know if that was the same thing. So I got my phone out and started googling, is Rainforest Alliance the

same thing as Fairtrade? But it wasn't loading because I didn't have good signal in the co-op and I was annoyed because I was running late for a train and I realised I was getting increasingly furious that a technological masterpiece from a supply chain riven with slavery was not operating quickly enough to tell me if farmers were being mistreated. I was using a smartphone to research workers' rights. It felt like being a slaveholder going into a shop and being like... Sorry mate, are the guys who made these whips unionised? It's just that the last lot I bought from you I discovered that the craftsmen lacked collective bargaining powers and it made me feel

this real pang of guilt every time I... What what am I going to do? Not! I completely understand. We do have some ethical canes. Oh, what are those? Oh, for everyone you buy, we plant three more. Oh, thank God. The problem, of course,

is that thinking this way about absolutely everything is totally paralysing. Thinking about pleasure and conscience in our narrow lives at least feels possible. On a societal scale, in a globalised world, and that's not even getting into what we're doing to the planet, it almost feels too big. There's only one thing for it. I need a brew. Do you want one, Dad? Indian thought processes tea as a... I'm just gonna make you tea. Dad, I reckon these seven blunders,

what if they're just baked in to human nature? Is there any point even thinking about them then? Or are we just doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past in different ways forever? People have always felt that way, wherever and whenever they are. Really? I've been alive 74 years that I know of, and it has been the case my entire life. I see.

Remember there is value in trying to understand things, even if you can't personally fix them? Remember, there is value in trying to understand things, even if you can't personally fix them? Right. Like that time I watched all those YouTube videos so I could use electrician words in front of the electrician. Sure. So don't give up. Go further. There are five more blunders of the world to explore. Of course, their meaning changes and evolves as societies change and evolve. That's why Gandhiji said we must try to know them in our hearts. It's not about perfection. It doesn't exist. It's about consciousness, awareness, knowledge.

That's what Indian thought process. Why are you making that face? I've just realised I have no idea where this tea came from. I need to Google. Where's my phone? I've explored the first two blunders of the world. Wealth without work and pleasure without conscience. Their meanings may have changed drastically over the last century, but I reckon thinking about them can still help us understand where we are now and potentially even about them can still help us understand where we are now and potentially even navigate an uncertain future. A future full of questions. Questions like, can education change things?

Does economics have the answers? Might science save us all? And does Nish's dad have an agent or can I just approach him directly? Join me next time when I'll look to answer these questions by exploring knowledge without character, commerce without morality, and science without humanity. Three more of Frederick Lewis Donaldson and Mahatma Gandhi's Seven Blunders of the World. Ahir Shah's Seven Blunders of the World was written and performed by me, Aagir Shah, with additional material from Glenn Moore, featuring Vikram Shah and Mira Sayal.

The producers were Daisy Knight and Jules Lom and it was an Avalon production for BBC Radio 4. Hello, Russell Kane here. I used to love British history, be proud of it. Henry VIII, Queen Victoria, massive fan of stand-up comedians, obviously, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor. That has become much more challenging, for I am the host of BBC Radio 4's Evil Genius, the show where we take heroes and villains from history and try to work out were they evil or genius. Do not catch up on BBC Sounds by searching Evil Genius if you don't want to see your heroes destroyed.

But if like me you quite enjoy it, have a little search. Listen to Evil Genius with me, Russell Kane. Go to BBC Sounds and have your world destroyed.