Monday, 20 November 2017

Why did Kauravas lose the Mahabharatha war despite having the best-in-class warriors and a larger army?

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What Mahabharata Teaches UsThe Mahabharata war teaches us a lot of management lessons. The poor management of Kaurava camp led to their loss. Let’s go in detail about what all went wrong with Kauravas.
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Strike the biggest coin:
Pandavas clearly targeted the leader of Kaurava camp. They did not target the other warriors.
They wanted to take the chief down rather than killing others ,
so that opposition gets demoralized (as the biggest guy is gone),
they get confused and
get pressurized to choose a new leader.
new leader will be pressurized to deliver great results.
Bhishma is the most powerful warrior and the strategist of Kaurava camp. Pandavas spent first 10 days figuring out how to take Bhishma down.
In the first ten days, Kauravas lost only 2 Akshouhini of army and Pandavas were left with only 2 Akshouhinis.
The longer the Kaurava camp had a same leader, lower was their mortality rate.
Every succeeding commander in chief delivered poorer results when compared to the predecessors.
Bhishma was better than Drona.
Drona was better than Karna.
Karna was better than Shalya.
When the leaders change, the strategies change. Not every leader thinks the same way. Ballmer didn’t think like Gates. Nadella doesn’t think like Ballmer. Army gets tired and lose energy seeing their leaders lose and die.
Also note this: While Pandavas targeted the biggest fish, Kauravas were targeting the youngest warrior Abhimanyu.
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Commander-in-chief doesn’t get full freedom:
Just like a few Governments, Duryodhan never let any of his commander-in-chiefs completely independent. He influenced all his chiefs. So, they couldn’t deliver the best.
Even Duryodhan accuses Bhishma for not being sincere in the war at the end of 8th day.
In Pandavas’ case, although Drishtadyumna was the chief, he was only a figure-head. Krishna took care of the strategies completely. Neither Dhristadhyumna, nor Yudhistra tried to influence Krishna. They took Krishna’s words as final.
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Duryodhan misjudged Pandavas:
Duryodhan totally miscalculated the power of Pandavas.
Check at Duryodhan’s words in the First Chapter of Gita at the very beginning of the war.
Duryodhan says: The strength of our army is unlimited and we are safely marshaled by Grandsire Bheeshma, while the strength of the Pandava army, carefully marshaled by Bheem, is limited.[1]
In the first part of the above sentence, Duryodhan says that Kaurava army was protected by Bhishma. Yes, that was true, because Bhisma was the proclaimed commander-in-chief and also he’s the most destructive warrior in their camp. So, this makes sense.
But, look at the second half. It reads, Pandava army was protected by Bheema. It would have made sense, if Duryodhan has said that Pandava army was protected by Dhrishtadhyumna or Krishna. Since, Dhristadhyumna was the Commander-in-chief and Krishna was the strategist and he’s the Paramathma himself.
But Duryodhan, who was obsessed with his Arch-Rival Bheema, mentions that Bheema was protecting the camp. How misjudged that was. How could Duryodhan forget Krishna was the guy to note!
The force the strife demands, the force he owns, the force of foes,
The force of friends; these should he weigh ere to the war he goes.
- Thirukkural[2]
One more example for Kaurava army’s foolishness is Jayadrath wasted his ‘one-day invincibility power’ just to kill the youngest Abhimanyu.
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These are some practical reasons why Kauravas lost the war. Pandavas also had flaws from their side, but cumulatively, Pandavas’ side acted more pro-actively

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