“Game Theory & The Battle of Sinhgad” – Guest Post by Kedar
Dear All: It is my pleasure to publish this guest post by Kedar. It takes a fresh look at the Battle of Sinhgad from the perspective of game theory. Read on. Have a safe, refreshing weekend.
*** Game theory and battle of Singhad ***
By Kedar Soman
In March of 1670, in the middle of one night, Tanaji Malusare attacked Singhad on Shivaji’s orders. He , his brother Suryaji and his maternal uncle Shelar mama, and the soldiers climbed the cliffs to enter the fort and caught the fort army by surprise. In the battle that ensued, Tanaji was killed. The soldiers started running back to the ropes they used to climb. At this time, Shelar mama ordered to cut the ropes, cutting the only retreat option of soldiers. Soldiers turned back and Maratha army won the fort.
All kids in Maharashtra read this story in history books. The story is discussed more for heroics and pride then for the excellency in military tactics and leadership.
Today Let’s do a little analysis of this battle using basics of game theory.
Explaining basics of game theory is outside the scope of this post. For those of you who do not know what is game theory, please google search game theory or visit Wikipedia article on game theory. Go ahead and read it. Trust me, game theory is fun mathematics.
In short, this relatively new branch of mathematics explores the way individuals or group of individuals evaluate their choices, prioritize and make decisions. No matter the difference in our personalities, it is surprising to find that when faced with a problem and multiple choices, almost all of us resort to some common strategies.
Let’s talk about Sinhgad battle as a game. On battlefield, there is actually a slight conflict in the objective of individual soldier and the army he/she is in. For the viewpoint of individual soldier, his/her own contribution is very insignificant. If others run away, individual cannot make any difference. But if the individual runs away, the others can still win. So seemingly there is no problem if an indivudual runs away.
But if he/she loses life, then the loss to the individual is huge. Thus the risk in running away is less than the risk in fighting. So the default choice of individual soldier is to run away.
If every individual thinks like this, that is the end of the army.
Enter a leader in the picture, Tanaji in this case. Leader will oversee the army, will enforce discipline and will punish if somebody runs away. So this fear of enforcer added to the motivation of winning the battle stops the soldier from running away. So as long as there is enforcer, there is this added risk to running away. So total risk of running away now becomes more than risk of fighting. Thus soldiers fight.
When Tanaji fell, for an individual soldier, the risk of fighting suddenly became more than risk of running away. Thus most of the soldiers started running away.
Now Shelarmama comes in picture. At this point, he had several choices. He could have continued doing he was doing, fighting and hoping soldiers could come back and follow his example. Or he could have stopped fighting and started trying to stop the soldiers who were running away.
Shelarmama did not do any of the above. He did exactly what an excellent military commander would have done in this case. He went and cut off the ropes to retreat.
Now no need of talking. The only two choices faced by soldiers were to jump off the cliff and die or to turn and fight back. The risk of running away suddenly increased to infinity, while the risk of fighting the battle remained the same. So soldiers turned back and fought.
Purely from humanitarian viewpoint, the decision made by Shelarmama is actually against humanity. Because he increased average risk to human life. However as a army commander, at that time and place, this was very right thing to do.
The chart below shows the risks in fighting and risk in running away for individual soldier at different states. When Tanaji was dead, three hypothetical choices Shelarmama are analyzed. It is clear that the choice Shelarmama made is the best choice for winning the battle.
Choice Tables:
case 1:- Tanaji Alive
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | Medium |
| Run | High |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Fight
Case 2:- Tanaji Dead
Shelarmama choice 1: Leave fight and try to convince soldiers
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | Low |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Run
Shelarmama choice 2: Focus on fighting and hope soldiers follow the lead
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | None |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Run
Shelarmama choice 3: Leave fight and try to threaten soldiers with punishment
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | High |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Uncertain
Shelarmame choice 4: Cut off the ropes
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | Extreme |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Fight
There is no question about dedication and bravery of Tanaji. However the award for excellent military tactics goes to Shelarmama. This shows why bravery is not the most important quality of a commander. General MacArthur said once “The excellent military leader has two things. Clear sight of objectives and clear understanding of his forces. Bravery is what results after that.â€
The similar technique was used by General Montgomery in WW-II when fighting against German General Romel in Africa. The day Montgomery arrived to take charge, he burned all the bridges and trenches built for retreat. The same technique was used by Alexander the great in his battle against Porus. Alexander made his forces cross the river to attack Porus army. Thus, their back pressed to river, Alexandar’s forces knew that retreat was not an option.
This technique almost always has an adverse secondary effect on the opponent army. When they see that their attackers reduced to a desperate state, they expect fierce fight. So their morale goes down.
Sadly after 100 years, Maratha army lacked any Shelarmama on the battleground of Panipat. When Vishwasrao fell, Maratha army dissolved, leaving giant wound on Marathas that would take decades to heal.
May it be battleground, or may it be personal life. One thing is clear. History cannot be made unless the ropes to retreat are cut off.
***
Here’s a link to Kedar’s blog. Pl have a look…you will not be disappointed.
Image courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sinhgad_entrance.jpg
Game theory and battle of Singhad
In March of 1670, in the middle of one night, Tanaji Malusare attacked Singhad on Shivaji’s orders. He , his brother Suryaji and his maternal uncle Shelar mama, and the soldiers climbed the cliffs to enter the fort and caught the fort army by surprise. In the battle that ensued, Tanaji was killed. The soldiers started running back to the ropes they used to climb. At this time, Shelar mama ordered to cut the ropes, cutting the only retreat option of soldiers. Soldiers turned back and Maratha army won the fort.
All kids in Maharashtra read this story in history books. The story is discussed more for heroics and pride then for the excellency in military tactics and leadership.
Today Let’s do a little analysis of this battle using basics of game theory.
Explaining basics of game theory is outside the scope of this post. For those of you who do not know what is game theory, please google search game theory or visit Wikipedia article on game theory. Go ahead and read it. Trust me, game theory is fun mathematics.
In short, this relatively new branch of mathematics explores the way individuals or group of individuals evaluate their choices, prioritize and make decisions. No matter the difference in our personalities, it is surprising to find that when faced with a problem and multiple choices, almost all of us resort to some common strategies.
Let’s talk about Sinhgad battle as a game. On battlefield, there is actually a slight conflict in the objective of individual soldier and the army he/she is in. For the viewpoint of individual soldier, his/her own contribution is very insignificant. If others run away, individual cannot make any difference. But if the individual runs away, the others can still win. So seemingly there is no problem if an indivudual runs away.
But if he/she loses life, then the loss to the individual is huge. Thus the risk in running away is less than the risk in fighting. So the default choice of individual soldier is to run away.
If every individual thinks like this, that is the end of the army.
Enter a leader in the picture, Tanaji in this case. Leader will oversee the army, will enforce discipline and will punish if somebody runs away. So this fear of enforcer added to the motivation of winning the battle stops the soldier from running away. So as long as there is enforcer, there is this added risk to running away. So total risk of running away now becomes more than risk of fighting. Thus soldiers fight.
When Tanaji fell, for an individual soldier, the risk of fighting suddenly became more than risk of running away. Thus most of the soldiers started running away.
Now Shelarmama comes in picture. At this point, he had several choices. He could have continued doing he was doing, fighting and hoping soldiers could come back and follow his example. Or he could have stopped fighting and started trying to stop the soldiers who were running away.
Shelarmama did not do any of the above. He did exactly what an excellent military commander would have done in this case. He went and cut off the ropes to retreat.
Now no need of talking. The only two choices faced by soldiers were to jump off the cliff and die or to turn and fight back. The risk of running away suddenly increased to infinity, while the risk of fighting the battle remained the same. So soldiers turned back and fought.
Purely from humanitarian viewpoint, the decision made by Shelarmama is actually against humanity. Because he increased average risk to human life. However as a army commander, at that time and place, this was very right thing to do.
The chart below shows the risks in fighting and risk in running away for individual soldier at different states. When Tanaji was dead, three hypothetical choices Shelarmama are analyzed. It is clear that the choice Shelarmama made is the best choice for winning the battle.
Choice Tables:
case 1:- Tanaji Alive
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | Medium |
| Run | High |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Fight
Case 2:- Tanaji Dead
Shelarmama choice 1: Leave fight and try to convince soldiers
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | Low |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Run
Shelarmama choice 2: Focus on fighting and hope soldiers follow the lead
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | None |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Run
Shelarmama choice 3: Leave fight and try to threaten soldiers with punishment
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | High |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Uncertain
Shelarmame choice 4: Cut off the ropes
| Soldier’s Choice | Risk |
|---|---|
| Fight | High |
| Run | Extreme |
Most rational choice for a soldier: Fight
There is no question about dedication and bravery of Tanaji. However the award for excellent military tactics goes to Shelarmama. This shows why bravery is not the most important quality of a commander. General MacArthur said once “The excellent military leader has two things. Clear sight of objectives and clear understanding of his forces. Bravery is what results after that.â€
The similar technique was used by General Montgomery in WW-II when fighting against German General Romel in Africa. The day Montgomery arrived to take charge, he burned all the bridges and trenches built for retreat. The same technique was used by Alexander the great in his battle against Porus. Alexander made his forces cross the river to attack Porus army. Thus, their back pressed to river, Alexandar’s forces knew that retreat was not an option.
This technique almost always has an adverse secondary effect on the opponent army. When they see that their attackers reduced to a desperate state, they expect fierce fight. So their morale goes down.
Sadly after 100 years, Maratha army lacked any Shelarmama on the battleground of Panipat. When Vishwasrao fell, Maratha army dissolved, leaving giant wound on Marathas that would take decades to heal.
May it be battleground, or may it be personal life. One thing is clear. History cannot be made unless the ropes to retreat are cut off.
Good article with a good moral.
Brilliant article.
Although, I read this blog through my RSS reader and you offer a full feed so i dont really need to check back ur blog.
But your articles are so amazing that I end up visiting your blog to leave comments after every post 🙂
@ Aditya: Thanks…The credit for this article though must go to Kedar! Pl spread the word…and pl do join in the discussions…
I feel you are not giving enough credit to the early Rajput Resistance, and the latter Maratha and Vijayanagar empires, thanks to whom largely Hindu dharma has survived. For example, the early Rajput resistance saw that Islam, which had demolished great empires such as Persia in a mere 2 years, needed almost 500 years to establish a foothold in North India. Later, Marathas lost almost 15% of their entire population to their protracted and brutal 27 year war with Aurangzeb, who spend the last 27 years of his life (1680 to 1707) camped in today’s Maharashtra trying to vanquish the fledgling Hindu kingdom. The marathas eventually broke the back of the Mughal empire and took over almost all of their lands (and then lost these lands to the British in their second anglo-maratha war of 1818). In the intermediate period, the Hindu empire of Vijayananar stood as a bulwark against Islamic expansion at a time when the Deccan seemed completely lost. You lose these larger plot and focus on largely romanticized small stories whose historical veracity may be in doubt. Take a look at the map of India in 1760 (google it) and you will see the magnitude of Maratha achievement – nearly all of India was in their control. Where are your paens for their sacrifices, and those of the Rajputs and Vijayanagar?
@ Sharad: I don’t know why you got the impression that I am not “giving enough credit to the early Rajput Resistance, and the latter Maratha and Vijayanagar empires, thanks to whom largely Hindu dharma has survived.”
This is a guest post…and it is *not* about down-playing the very significant achievements of the Rajputs, the Vijayanagar Empire and latterly the Sikhs…
As for “Where are your paens for their sacrifices, and those of the Rajputs and Vijayanagar?”, good question…Will you write some? I will be happy to publish them on my blog…I am not being sarcastic; I mean this. Although I would love to write about these heroes, I simply do not have time to write on everything I want to write about.
Thanks,
Shantanu
P.S. Separately, you may find a document (in the Docs and Slides widget under the “Links” tab) on “The Myth of 1000 years of Hindu Slavery” interesting. Quick link here
I found this fine little book on the Third Battle of Panipat (between the Marathas and Ahmad Shah Abdali for control over Punjab) made available by the Delhi University in the form of pdf file. It is quite short, and one can read all of it in one sitting.
http://library.du.ac.in/dspace/handle/1/8742
The author, who was present at the battle, says that the Hindu deaths may be in excess of 200,000 in one day!
The third battle of Panipat is perhaps the second most important battle fought on Indian soil in the last 1000 years (Tarain II would perhaps be the first). British correspondence suggests that even they thought that had the Marathas won at Panipat, the british might never have been able to establish a foothold in India.
A must read little book. The definitive book on the subject is Shejwalkar’s “Panipat 1761″. There is also an entire volume on “The Maratha Supremacy 1707 – 1818″ in the 11 volume “History and Culture of the Indian People†(ed: R.C. Majumdar) which reproduces letters written by various principals on the Panipat battle.
14th January this year marked the 250th year of the battle. There was a small ceremony for the martyrs on the battlefield. The Haryana government is planning a memorial there.