The lists are back in discussions after the entry of blockchains. Umberto Eco wrote about how human beings like to get engrossed in the lists. Jorges Borges will suggest that the human beings like to get lost in the labyrinth of the lists to escape from the mortality. We like the lists and the lists are dictated by the powerful or some external controls or by the processes.

The Economist covered an interesting article on lists explaining the double entry used to keep accounts as the prime condition for the rise of capitalism. The accounting system that made the transactions in the businesses open and verifiable by all was the base on which the system of capitalism was built. The blockchain makes the lists not only open, but also it makes the lists self-controlled and self-organised.

Indian caste system is the system of forcing people into immutable lists which are graded. It is organised by the religious texts and forced upon the people without their will or consent. Caste system is graded list with the rules marked according to the rules of Manu.

Recently, Nilkeni talked about digital colonialism by that he meant that the list of Aadhar Card users is available to the few data companies which will give them power to manipulate individuals without the boundaries of the nation. But the blockchain technology may also lead to the less or no power to the state if the people claim self sovereignty to relate with other humans across the borders. If we let the people claim self sovereignty then they are free to relate on the basis of it to other human beings.

In the current paradigm, the states are sovereign, and not the people. People are citizens of the state and the state prepares the list of the people and enlists them for certain work that might or might not feed into common good.

The caste system by its nature creates the lists and pegs people into indestructible places. The list is difficult to destroy as people get entrapped into the list and become slave to the list. The constitution created a pragmatic list for ensuring equality and the creation of the constitutional list like Scheduled castes or scheduled tribes have given members opportunity to unite as the members of one class.

The larger question of the survival of the human species is buried into survival of a few castes of people in India. In order to change that the people affected by the graded list must unlist themselves. They can do that if they can create mechanism to delink from one list and create another list that is self driven and ensures self sovereignty, unlike in the present regime, the Brahminised Hinduism forces them into the list. It is therefore important to destroy the sovereignty of Hinduism through legal, political, and cultural mechanism.

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist