Battle of Saraighat

Final Battle of Saraighat

Date	Middle of March, 1671
Location	Saraighat, Guwahati, Assam, India
Result	Decisive Ahom Victory

Belligerents

Ahom kingdom

Mughal Empire

Commanders and leaders

Lachit Borphukan

Ramsingh I, Munnawar Khan & Shaista Khan

Casualties and losses

4000 men, 3 amirs

The Battle of Saraighat was fought in 1671 between the Mughal empire (led by the Kachwaha king, Raja Ramsingh I), and the Ahom Kingdom (led by Lachit Borphukan) on the Brahmaputra river at Saraighat, now in Guwahati, Assam, India. Although much weaker, the Ahom Army defeated the Mughal Army by brilliant uses of the terrain, clever diplomatic negotiations to buy time, guerrilla tactics, psychological warfare, military intelligence and by exploiting the sole weakness of the Mughal forces—its navy.

The Battle of Saraighat was the last battle in the last major attempt by the Mughals to extend their empire into Assam. Though the Mughals managed to regain Guwahati briefly after a later Borphukan deserted it, the Ahoms wrested control in the Battle of Itakhuli in 1682 and maintained it till the end of their rule.

After Nara Narayana died in 1587, the Koch kingdom (ensconced between the Mughal Empire in the west/south and Ahom kingdom in the east) was divided into the western Koch Bihar and the eastern Koch Hajo, ruled by his son Lakshimi Narayan and nephew Raghudev respectively. These two kingdoms were bitter rivals. In due course the Mughals formed an alliance with Lakshmi Narayan and the Nawab of Dhaka, a governor of the Mughals attacked Parikshit Narayan, the son of Raghudev in 1602 at Dhubri, the western most corner of present-day Assam. Following many battles, Parikshit finally accepted defeat and was sent off to Delhi; but his brother, Bali Narayana took refuge with the Ahoms, who were interested in keeping the Koch as a buffer between themselves and the Mughals. The first Mughal-Ahom battle took place in 1615 when the Mughals attacked the Ahoms, then under Pratap Singha. This resulted in a period of Ahom-Mughal conflicts fluctuating fortunes that ended with the Treaty of Asurar Ali in 1639. The Treaty fixed Barnadi river in the north bank and Asurar Ali in the south bank of the Brahmaputra as the boundary between the Ahoms and the Mughals. This, and the defeat of the Koch king at Pandu in 1641, resulted in a period of Mughal administration in Kamrup (Guwahati and Hajo).

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