Lachit Borphukan (24 November 1622 – 25 April 1672) was an army general, primarily known for commanding the Ahom Army and the victory in the Battle of Saraighat (1671) that thwarted an invasion by the vastly superior Mughal Forces under the command of Ramsingh I. He died about a year later in April 1672. There is keen contemporary interest in Lachit Borphukan today—he has emerged as a powerful symbol of Assam's historical autonomy.

Biography

Lachit was youngest born to Momai Tamuli Borbarua, a commoner who rose to the rank of Borbarua under Pratap Singha ((r. 1545 – 1641)). His sister was Pakhari Gabhoru, a queen to the Ahom kings Jayadhwaj Singha, Chakradhwaj Singha and Samaguria Raja, and his niece was Ramani Gabharu, the Ahom princess who was given to the Mughals as part of the Treaty of Ghilajharighat. A few Buranjis give some details on Lachit's life and education. He is said to have participated in battle against Mir Jumla's forces at Dikhaumukh and rose up the ranks of Ahom officialdom—Ghora Barua, Dulia Barua, Simalugiria Phukan and Dolakasharia Barua. Following the Chakradhwaj's preparations to retake Guwahati and on the eve of the march, Lachit was appointed the Borphukan (Ahom viceroy in the west) and the commander of the Ahom forces.

Guwahati campaign

Lachit set up his base-camp at Kaliabar and then advanced on Guwahati in August 1667 in two divisions; and after a series of battles, finally retook Guwahati with the fall of Itakhuli in November 1667.

Death

A few Buranjis briefly describe Lachit's victory over the Mughal naval fleet, led by Ram Singh, in the Battle of Saraighat. He died soon after in Kaliabor and was buried at Teok in Jorhat in a maidam, which are burial grounds for Ahom royals and nobles.

Contemporary narratives

In the pre-colonial times Buranjis were not available for popular consumption. Beginning in the early twentieth century, a few localities in Upper Assam began commemorating November 24 as Lachit Dibox (trans. Lachit Day). The account of the celebrations and use of Lachit in Charingaon then were very different from those in the 1970s when Lachit had become a symbol of the Assamese. The contemporaneous burgeoning of public interest in history ensured that the legend of Barphukan had "attained an iconic status" by the first quarter of the century and Surya Kumar Bhuyan published an article comparing him with Shivaji; but Lachit was only one of the many historical icons who were appropriated by Assamese elites towards different politico-cultural ends, and his popularity was later surpassed by Joymoti Konwari and others. In 1947, Bhuyan published Lachit's biography "Lachit Barphukan and His Times" against the backdrop of Ahom conflicts with the Mughal Empire; not only did the work grant a veneer of "academic respectability" to the legend but also "mythologized" his exploits in the Assamese psyche. However, in state-building in postcolonial Assam, cultural heroes like Lachit were largely displaced by anti-colonial activists; Jayeeta Sharma notes the legend of Lachit to have "retired into the domain of knowledge, away from activism." Nonetheless, the legend survived in the backwaters of Assamese nationalism, with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) — a secessionist organization seeking the creation of an independent and sovereign Assam — extensively using Lachit's imagery for propaganda. Lachit's memory would be significantly appropriated by the state only under the governorship of Srinivas Kumar Sinha; Sharma, writing as of 2004, found that it was no more the ULFA but the Government of Assam that tried the most to bring him into prominence. Coterminous to the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party in the state, Lachit has been inducted within the framework of a Hindu Nationalist grammar, as a Hindu military hero who defended against Muslim aggression which is contested by historians who claim that Lachit followed Tai religion and wasn't a Hindu. His fellow commanders in the Saraighat War included Assamese Muslims, also known as "Gariya" and the most famous among them was Ismail Siddique, locally known as Bagh Hazarika. However, the Mughal forces were led by a Hindu Rajput named Ram Singh.