Utkarsh Rai

In early 1600s, Mughals realized the strategic importance of Brahmaputra valley. After a few battles with Ahom kings, they signed a treaty of Asurar Ali in 1639, marking the Barnadi river in the north bank and Asurar Ali in the south bank of Brahmaputra as the boundary of Ahom Kingdom and Mughal Empire. In 1658, the king of Koch Bihar tried to occupy Koch Hajo, but Ahom kings repulsed them and pushed them back beyond Dhubri after taking Guwahati. During this time there was a succession war after the fall of Shahjahan. When Aurangzeb won and became the Mughal emperor, Mir Jumla was the Mughal Viceroy at Dhaka. Mir Jumla was asked by Aurangzeb to recapture Assam. In 1661, he marched with a large army and defeated Ahom and captured their capital Garhgaon.
Even though Mughals won the battle, they had to face strong monsoon and debilitating diseases like malaria and dysentery. A defeated Ahom King did not have the intelligence about Mughals’ plight and agreed to a humiliating treaty. According to the treaty, Ahom gave territory from Guwahati to the Manas river and also a large amount of money. The Mughals retreated and Mir Jumla died of illness.

Lesson: Organizations should undertake competitive barrier analysis, which helps them in understanding the conditions that make it difficult or impossible to compete in a given market segment. Once equipped with this information, organization will then be better prepared to take a right decision from long-term perspective. Ahom King took one defeat at face value and did not do a “deep dive” to understand the critical factors like monsoon and diseases that would have allowed him to avoid a humiliating treaty.

Jayadhwaj Singha, the Ahom king who signed this humiliating treaty, died a natural death. Before dying, he asked his relative and successor, King Chakradhwaj Singha, to take a pledge to undo the damage committed by him. The new king accepted the challenge and started making preparation to recover the lost territories. He ordered stocking of the food, arms and ammunitions and recruiting and training army personnel. He appointed Lachit Borphukan as the new commander-in-chief. In 1667, the Ahom army advanced from Garhgaon to Guwahati.
Lachit captured north and south sides of Guwahati. The Mughal cannons were a big obstacle. Lachit asked one of his subordinate to infiltrate the Mughal camp in the night and pour water into their cannons. This helped Lachit to win the battle and his army captured Mughal governor Firuj Khan and other soldiers. Mughal had to vacate Guwahati.

Lesson: Demonstrating results within a short timeframe allows a new leader to establish his credibility as shown by Lachit. People have high expectations from the new leader. If the leader fails to deliver quickly or up to their expectation, then he will have a difficult time to earn the respect. On the other hand, if the leader commits mistakes in a hurry to prove himself, this can destroy the team. So the leader has to balance these two factors with accurate assessment of the overall situation.

Lachit expected and wisely planned for a retaliatory attack on Guwahati by the Mughals. He did not waste time and started bolstering Guwahati defence by erecting walls and planting obstacles. Guwahati has excellent natural barriers as it is surrounded by hillocks and the Brahmaputra river. Lachit was focused in ensuring the full safety of Guwahati and planned each move of the enemy carefully. In 1669, the Mughals under Raja Ram Singh reached up to the Manas river with a huge army. Lachit’s spies had kept him informed of the Ram Singh’s progress, but the size of Mughal army forced Lachit to buy time by engaging in a negotiation. The Mughals laid siege to Guwahati for around a year.

Lesson: Lachit has anticipated Mughals’ move, kept an eye on their movements, worked out a war plan based on latest data. Most important, he kept his enemy engaged in discussions until he was prepared to take it head-on. Similarly, a great senior manager has to be a great juggler who can handle multiple tasks well, a great thinker who could anticipate and mitigate risks and a great implementer who can bring the desired results.

After stalling for time through negotiations, Lachit started guerilla warfare. He knew that his army could not fight the Mughals in an open-ground attack. Ram Singh became frustrated due to failed negotiations and attacks on his army. He started sowing the seeds of doubt in Ahom King’s mind that Lachit has defected to Mughal side and therefore not fighting a proper battle.

The Ahom King became suspicious and impatient. He ordered Lachit to attack the Mughals in the open to prove his innocence. Lachit tried his best to convince Ahom king against this strategy, but all in vain. Eventually, Lachit reluctantly followed the order and attacked the Mughals at Allaboi. Ahom gained initial success, but then Mughals started destroying the Ahom army. Lachit did a great job of building a precautionary defence by digging a line in the rear of his army and that helped him from total destruction, by pulling remainder of his troops to safety.

Lesson: Every relationship goes through its ups and downs including the supervisor- subordinate relationship. On one hand, it was good that Ahom King did not fire Lachit based on rumour but gave him a chance; but on the other the king did not trust Lachit’s advice even though Lachit had demonstrated success and loyalty. A leader has to judge the quality of his team and build a strong sustainable relationship that can stand ups and downs in business situations.

The Mughals wanted Ahom to honour the Asrur Ali treaty of 1639. Mughals were prepared to compensate Ahom well. However, Ahom did not want to part with their western part of the kingdom. Ahom suspected that the commitment given by Ram singh will not be eventually honored by the Mughal emperor. Also giving Guwahati would have amounted to providing Mughals with a hold on the Brahmaputra valley and a launching pad for attacks on the eastern part of the kingdom. The Mughals could not wait longer but knew that land attack was unlikely to work. Hence they launched a massive naval attack on the river at Saraighat. The Ahom soldiers had not recovered from their earlier defeat and Lachit was seriously ill. Ahom were losing the will to fight and some started retreating.

Lachit was observing this development from his sickbed. He asked his troops to carry him on a boat. Seven boats advanced against the Mughal fleet. Seeing their leader entering the war had an electrifying impact of the Ahom soldiers. A large number of small Ahom boats entered the river quickly. Mughal’s large boats could not maneuver deftly against the attack from small boats. Many Mughals were killed and Ahom recaptured up to the Manas river. Lachit died a year later. After a few years, the Mughals briefly recaptured Guwahati, but in 1682 Ahom won it back. Since then the Brahmaputra valley never became a part of Mughal empire.

Lesson: Building a high-performing team is important, but to get extraordinary results requires inspired leadership. Ability to turn the momentum is what differentiates a leader from mere managers. Leaders display confidence as well as inner conviction. A strong leader can lead a good team in delivering exceptional performance by convincing his troops that they can win in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.