Saraighat, 1671

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In the 17th century Aurangzeb sent Mughal forces into Assam. This was part of the Mughal effort to push the empire's eastern edge past Bengal into the Brahmaputra valley.
The Mughals briefly captured the Ahom capital Garhgaon. The old capital stood near what is today Sibsagar in upper Assam. [4]
The Mughal commander in that campaign was Mir Jumla, Aurangzeb's governor of Bengal. Mughal forces held Garhgaon for a few years, and the Ahoms had to pay tribute to the Mughal empire for a short time — until they beat the Mughals in a later war. [4]
Why this matters: the Ahom loss of the capital was real but temporary. Holding a capital is not the same as holding a country. The Mughals could not keep supply lines running through a land of rivers and forest.

The Ahoms answered with their terrain — dense forests, hills and rivers. They used the land itself as a weapon.
They used persistent guerrilla tactics (small, quick attacks again and again, instead of one big open battle). Hit, melt into the forest, hit again.
The Mughals had the bigger force:
more men,
a larger fleet of river boats.
The Ahoms had the better ground knowledge:
they knew the shallows, the sandbars and the flood season of the Brahmaputra,
they built trenches and earth walls quickly, so a Mughal advance kept meeting fresh defences.

Fought on the Brahmaputra River near present-day Guwahati. It was a naval battle — a fight of boats on a river, not of armies on a plain.
The Ahom commander was Lachit Borphukan. "Borphukan" is a title — the chief commander and governor of the Ahom kingdom's western frontier, not a personal name.
Lachit Borphukan and his 10,000 men defeated a Mughal force of 30,000. The Ahoms won at odds of roughly 1 against 3.
Lachit Borphukan's dates: born 24 November 1622, died 25 April 1672 — he died less than a year after the victory. [2]
At Saraighat he faced big Mughal cannons and ships with small boats and a well-armed but much smaller force. The narrow river stretch near Saraighat suited small, fast boats and hurt the big Mughal vessels. [3]
Result: the Ahoms preserved their independence. The Mughal plan to hold the Brahmaputra valley collapsed.

The Mughal general Ram Singh — a Rajput serving the Mughals — praised the Assamese soldiers:

"Every Assamese soldier is expert in rowing boats, in shooting arrows, in digging trenches, and in wielding guns and cannons. I have not seen such specimens of versatility in any other part of India."
Read the four skills in that line carefully. They are the whole Ahom method in one sentence:
rowing boats — river war,
shooting arrows — old skills kept alive,
digging trenches — field fortification, done fast,
guns and cannons — the Ahoms had gunpowder weapons too, not only bows.
The point of the quote for an exam answer: this is praise from the losing side's commander, so it is strong evidence, not local boasting.

The Ahoms ruled much of Assam from the 13th century until British rule in 1838. So the kingdom lasted about six hundred years. [4]
Ahom power reached its peak under King Rudra Singh (1696–1714), after Saraighat. Victory in 1671 bought the kingdom the calm it needed for that peak. [4]
The Ahoms were one of the very few kingdoms in India able to resist repeated Mughal attempts through the whole 17th century, in spite of some short Mughal wins. [4]
The moidams — the burial mounds of Ahom royalty at Charaideo — are the dynasty's best-known remains and are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. [5]

Lachit Divas (Lachit Day) is observed across Assam every year on 24 November, his birth day, to mark the Saraighat victory. [2]
The 400th birth anniversary of Lachit Borphukan was marked by a year-long national programme; the Prime Minister addressed its closing ceremony in New Delhi on 25 November 2022. [3]
Useful exam link: the best cadet of the National Defence Academy receives a gold medal named after Lachit Borphukan — the 1671 commander is still the model held up to Indian officer cadets.

Battle of Saraighat was fought in 1671 on the Brahmaputra river, near present-day Guwahati.
Ahom commander at Saraighat: Lachit Borphukan (born 24 November 1622, died 25 April 1672). [2]
Force strength at Saraighat: 10,000 Ahoms defeated 30,000 Mughals.
Mughal general who praised Assamese soldiers as versatile — Ram Singh.
Mughal commander who earlier captured the Ahom capital Garhgaon — Mir Jumla; Garhgaon lies near present-day Sibsagar. [4]
Lachit Divas is observed in Assam on 24 November every year. [2]
The Ahom dynasty ruled Assam from the 13th century to 1838; its peak was under Rudra Singh (1696–1714). [4]
The moidams (Ahom royal burial mounds) at Charaideo are a UNESCO World Heritage site. [5]
Saraighat was a naval / river battle, not a land battle — Ahom small boats against Mughal big ships and cannon. [3]
Mughal ruler during the Saraighat campaign: Aurangzeb.

Terrain plus local knowledge can cancel out numbers. The Mughal army was three times larger and better supplied with boats, yet lost. Assam's rivers, forests and flood season broke Mughal supply lines, while the Ahoms used trenches and guerrilla raids. Saraighat is the standard Indian example of a smaller force winning by choosing the ground.
Saraighat marks the eastern limit of Mughal expansion. Read together with Rajput and Sikh resistance under Aurangzeb, it shows that the empire's late-17th-century growth on the map hid a real inability to hold distant frontier regions. The Ahoms had earlier paid tribute [4]; after 1671 they did not.
Evidence from the opponent is strong evidence. Ram Singh's tribute — a Rajput noble serving the Mughals praising Assamese versatility — can be used in answers on how regional armies matched imperial forces in skill and in gunpowder weapons, not only in courage.
Regional resistance and the idea of the nation today. The state observance of Lachit Divas on 24 November and the national 400th-anniversary programme closing in New Delhi in November 2022 show how a 17th-century regional figure is absorbed into a modern all-India memory of resistance [2][3]. Useful for questions linking history writing with national identity.