By Satyabrat Borah
Every year on the twenty fourth of November, the state of Assam in northeast India pauses to observe Lachit Divas, a day dedicated to the memory of Lachit Borphukan, the legendary Ahom general who, in 1671, halted the advance of the mighty Mughal army at the Battle of Saraighat and preserved the sovereignty of the Brahmaputra valley. The day is not merely a regional commemoration; it carries within it layers of historical, cultural, and political meaning that continue to resonate in contemporary India. Lachit Divas stands as a powerful assertion of indigenous resistance, a reminder of a time when a relatively small kingdom successfully defied one of the most formidable empires of the early modern world, and an affirmation of the distinct identity of the people of Assam.
The Ahom kingdom, established in 1228 by Sukaphaa, a Shan prince from present day Myanmar, had by the seventeenth century developed into a sophisticated polity with a remarkable military tradition. For over six centuries the Ahoms ruled the Brahmaputra valley, absorbing local tribes, adopting wet rice cultivation, and perfecting a system of governance that blended Tai Ahom institutions with indigenous Assamese elements. Their paek ghat system of compulsory public service, their mastery of riverine warfare, and their ability to mobilize entire villages for defense gave them an edge that larger continental empires often failed to comprehend. By the time Aurangzeb ascended the Mughal throne in 1658, the Ahoms had already repelled more than a dozen Mughal invasions. Yet none of those earlier campaigns matched the scale and determination of the expedition launched in 1669 under the command of Raja Ram Singh of Amber, son of the famous Raja Jai Singh.
The Mughals arrived with an army that contemporary chronicles describe as numbering over thirty thousand cavalry, forty thousand infantry, and a large riverine fleet. They brought with them the confidence of having recently subdued Cooch Behar and Kamrup and the expectation that the conquest of Assam would be the final act in the consolidation of Mughal authority in eastern India. The Ahom kingdom, by contrast, was reeling from internal strife. King Chakradhwaj Singha had died in 1670, and his successor Udayaditya Singha was young and inexperienced. Famine and disease had weakened the population, and many among the nobility favored negotiation rather than war. It was in this moment of crisis that Lachit Borphukan emerged as the central figure of Assamese history.
Born in 1622 into a distinguished Ahom family, Lachit had risen through the ranks under the patronage of Prime Minister Atan Buragohain. He held several high offices, including superintendent of the royal stables and commander of the royal bodyguard, before being appointed supreme commander of the Ahom forces in 1667. When the Mughals renewed their offensive in 1669, Lachit was entrusted with the defense of Guwahati. For over two years he conducted a brilliant campaign of attrition, using guerrilla tactics, night raids, and scorched earth policies to wear down the invaders. By 1671 the Mughals had captured Guwahati, but their supply lines were stretched thin, their troops were suffering from malaria and dysentery, and morale was crumbling.
The decisive confrontation came in March 1671 at Saraighat, a narrow stretch of the Brahmaputra near present day Guwahati where the river is hemmed in by hills and sandbanks. Lachit, gravely ill with fever, was carried on a litter to the battlefield. The Mughals, led by Ram Singh, launched a massive assault with their war boats and cannons. For a time the Ahom forces wavered. Some commanders began to retreat, and panic threatened to spread. According to Ahom chronicles, Lachit rose from his sickbed, drew his sword, and uttered the famous words, “If you want to flee, flee. The king has placed me here to defend our country. My father did not desert the country in times of danger. Shall I do so now?” He then ordered the pursuit of the retreating soldiers and personally led a counterattack. Inspired by his example, the Ahom navy regrouped and launched a ferocious assault. Using their smaller, more maneuverable boats, they rammed the heavier Mughal vessels, boarded them, and engaged in hand to hand combat. By nightfall the Mughal fleet was shattered, Ram Singh was forced to retreat, and Assam remained unconquered.
The victory at Saraighat was not merely a military triumph; it was a testament to strategic brilliance, personal courage, and the resilience of a people determined to preserve their way of life. The Mughals never again attempted a large-scale invasion of Assam. The Ahom kingdom endured for another century and a half, finally succumbing not to Mughal arms but to internal decay and Burmese invasions in the early nineteenth century. Lachit Borphukan died a year after Saraighat, in 1672, at the age of fifty. His mausoleum at Holongapar remains a place of quiet reverence.
For nearly two centuries after his death, Lachit’s memory lived on in oral tradition, folk songs, and the annual Bihu performances where bards recounted the exploits of the great barphukan. Yet under British colonial rule, the story of Saraighat was deliberately marginalized. The colonial historiography of the northeast emphasized the inevitability of British conquest and portrayed the Ahoms as a semi barbarous tribe that had been rescued from Burmese tyranny by the East India Company. Lachit’s name rarely appeared in official gazetteers or school textbooks. It was only in the early twentieth century, with the rise of Assamese nationalism and the growing demand for recognition of regional histories, that scholars and writers began to rediscover and rehabilitate his legacy.
The first major step came in 1904 when the Assamese writer Padmanath Gohain Baruah published Lachit Barphukan, a historical novel that dramatized the events of 1671 and presented Lachit as a national hero. The book became immensely popular and helped crystallize a sense of pride in Assam’s pre colonial past. During the freedom struggle, leaders of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee invoked Lachit’s example to inspire resistance against British rule. After independence, successive state governments sought to institutionalize his memory. In 1999 the Assam government declared November 24, the date of Lachit’s birth anniversary according to some traditional calendars, as Lachit Divas, a state holiday. Since then the day has grown in stature, marked by official functions, cultural programs, and the awarding of the Lachit Borphukan Gold Medal to the best cadet at the National Defence Academy.
The significance of Lachit Divas, however, extends far beyond ceremonial remembrance. At its core, the day is an act of historical reclamation. In a country where the dominant narrative of medieval India has long revolved around the Delhi centric Mughal empire, the celebration of Lachit challenges the notion that the Mughals were invincible. It reminds Indians that the subcontinent was never a monolithic entity waiting to be unified by a single imperial power. Instead, it was a mosaic of kingdoms and cultures, many of which successfully asserted their autonomy. The Ahoms, like the Marathas in the west and the Sikhs in the northwest, demonstrated that local military traditions, when combined with leadership and determination, could hold their own against much larger adversaries.
Lachit Divas also serves as a powerful symbol of indigenous identity in a region that has often felt marginalized within the Indian nation state. The northeast, connected to the rest of India by the narrow Siliguri corridor, has historically been treated as peripheral. Development indicators lag behind the national average, and cultural stereotypes persist. By honoring Lachit, Assam asserts that its history is not a footnote but an integral chapter in the larger story of India’s resistance to foreign domination. The day resonates particularly strongly among the younger generation, who see in Lachit a figure untainted by the compromises of later politics, a warrior who placed country above personal comfort and lived up to the highest ideals of duty.
Recently the central government has taken steps to elevate Lachit’s stature beyond the borders of Assam. In 2022 Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a year-long celebration of the four hundredth birth anniversary of Lachit Borphukan, describing him as a symbol of India’s unity in diversity. The Indian Navy commissioned INS Lachit, a destroyer named in his honor, and the National Defence Academy instituted an annual award in his name. These gestures reflect a broader effort to weave regional heroes into a pan Indian narrative of valor and sacrifice. They also underscore the political importance of acknowledging the northeast at a time when the region remains strategically vital and culturally distinct.
Yet the celebration of Lachit Divas is not without its complexities. Some critics argue that the day has occasionally been appropriated for narrow political ends, used to stoke regional chauvinism or to draw simplistic parallels between seventeenth century Mughal invaders and contemporary minority communities. Such interpretations distort the historical record. Lachit fought to defend the Ahom kingdom, not to persecute any particular faith. The Ahom army itself was multi ethnic, drawing soldiers from the hills and the plains, and the kingdom practiced a policy of religious tolerance that allowed Hindu, Muslim, and animist traditions to coexist. The true lesson of Saraighat lies in unity born of shared purpose, not in division.
As Assam stands on the threshold of the twenty-first century, grappling with challenges of development, environmental degradation, and demographic change, Lachit Divas offers more than nostalgia. It is a call to emulate the qualities that made victory possible: discipline, sacrifice, strategic foresight, and unwavering commitment to the land and its people. Every schoolchild in Assam learns the story of the ailing general who rose from his sickbed to turn the tide of battle. Every year on November twenty fourth, when the tricolor is hoisted and wreaths are laid at his mausoleum, the people of Assam renew their pledge to safeguard the legacy of freedom he helped secure.
Lachit Borphukan belongs not only to Assam but to the collective memory of a nation that has always found ways to resist subjugation. In an era when history is often contested and identities fiercely asserted, Lachit Divas stands as an annual reaffirmation of pride in a past that refused to surrender. It is a day when the Brahmaputra seems to flow a little prouder, carrying within its currents the echo of war drums and the memory of a leader who taught his people that even the mightiest empire can be turned back when a nation stands united in defense of its home.
