Lachit Barphukan was an Ahom commander, known for his leadership in the Battle of Saraighat that thwarted an invasion by Mughal forces under the command of Ramsingh I. Biography Lachit was born on 24th November,1622. His father was Momai Tamuli, a commoner who rose to the ranks of Borbarua. 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 and was buried at Teok in Jorhat in a maidam. King Chakradhwaj Singha selected Lachit to command the expedition against the Mughals and appointed him as the Barphukan in 1667. Prior to his appointment to Borphukanship, he also had held the offices of Baruas and Phukans. Lachit was a disciple of Vaishnava preacher Ramgopal. Legacy Beginning in the early twentieth century, a few localities in Upper Assam started to commemorate November 24 as Lachit Dibox (trans. Lachit Day) as a medium of protest against the pro-migrant policies of the colonial government. The contemporaneous burgeoning of public interest in history meant that the legend of Barphukan had "attained an iconic status" by the first quarter of the century; yet, Lachit was one of the many quasi-historical icons who were appropriated by Assamese elites towards different politico-cultural ends and his popularity remained below Joymoti Konwari and others. In 1947, Surya Kumar Bhuyan published Lachit's biography 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. In postcolonial Assam, cultural heroes like Lachit were largely displaced by anti-colonial activists in Nehruvian nation-building; Jayeeta Sharma notes the legend of Lachit to have "retired into the domain of knowledge, away from activism." However, the legend survived in the backwaters of Assamese sub-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 within a governmental framework only under the governorship of Srinivas Kumar Sinha. With time, Lachit has been appropriated within a Hindu Nationalist grammar as an Indian military hero; Sharma, writing as of 2004, noted that it was no more the ULFA but the Government of Assam that tried the most to bring him into prominence. BJP's rise in Assam has established Lachit as