After Dhurandhar, Assam CM wants Aditya Dhar to bring Lachit Borphukan's story to the big screen

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has reached out to filmmaker Aditya Dhar to helm a grand biopic on legendary Ahom general Lachit Borphukan, with the aim of taking one of India's most celebrated but under-represented military heroes to a global audience. Sarma confirmed during a Facebook Live session on Thursday that initial discussions with the director have already taken place and that Dhar is expected to visit Assam in August to explore the project's creative vision further.

Sarma was direct about his reasoning for approaching Dhar specifically. "The movie Dhurandhar was a big hit. Aditya Dhar was the director and he is among the best known names among his contemporaries," he said, as reported by PTI. The filmmaker is currently riding high on the back-to-back success of Dhurandhar and its sequel Dhurandhar: The Revenge, the franchise that kicked off 2026 as one of Hindi cinema's biggest commercial events. Dhar has remained tight-lipped about his next project, making the Assam government's approach one of the more intriguing developments in Bollywood's upcoming pipeline.

Sarma said he believes a large-scale Hindi production is the right vehicle to give Lachit Borphukan's story the reach it deserves. "I think if our government can produce a film on Lachit Borphukan, we can make his heroics known globally. And, it will be a special achievement for us," he said.

The Chief Minister added that his initial conversation with Dhar had been encouraging. However, he was equally clear that the project would move ahead regardless of the outcome of those discussions. "If Aditya Dhar is unable to direct the film, we will approach other directors. The objective is to ensure that a grand biopic on Lachit Borphukan is made," Sarma said.

Part of a larger cultural push

The proposed biopic is not a standalone announcement. In its 2026-27 Budget presented on July 10, the Assam government formally announced plans to support films based on the lives of both Lachit Borphukan and freedom fighter Kushal Konwar, signalling a broader state-backed effort to bring Assam's historical figures to the national and international mainstream.

Who was Lachit Borphukan?

Lachit Borphukan is one of the most revered figures in Assamese history and among the most consequential military commanders of 17th century India, though his name remains far less known outside the northeast than his achievements warrant.

Born around 1622, Lachit rose through the ranks of the Ahom kingdom, which had ruled Assam for several centuries and had resisted Mughal incursions for decades. He was appointed Borphukan, the supreme commander of the Ahom army, and given the task of defending Assam against a massive Mughal offensive ordered by Emperor Aurangzeb.

The defining moment of Lachit's life came at the Battle of Saraighat in 1671, fought on the Brahmaputra river near present-day Guwahati. The Mughal forces, commanded by Ram Singh I and supported by a formidable river fleet, vastly outnumbered the Ahom army. The battle was as much a naval confrontation as a land one, and Lachit's tactical genius in using the Brahmaputra's geography to his advantage proved decisive.

What makes the story even more extraordinary is the physical condition in which Lachit fought it. He was gravely ill during the campaign, so ill at one point that he had to be carried on a palanquin to the battlefield. When his soldiers began to retreat in the face of the Mughal river assault, Lachit reportedly rose from his sickbed, boarded a small boat himself and led a counterattack personally, rallying his men with the words that have been passed down through generations. The Ahom forces repelled the Mughal fleet and secured a victory that halted Mughal expansion into Assam permanently. The empire made no further serious attempt to conquer the region after Saraighat.

Lachit Borphukan died less than a year after his greatest victory, in 1672, his health never having recovered from the illness he fought through during the campaign. Every year on November 24, Assam observes Lachit Divas in his memory, and the gold medal awarded to the best outgoing cadet at the National Defence Academy is named after him, a distinction that places him among the most formally honoured military figures in independent India's institutional memory.

Despite all of this, Lachit remains largely unknown to most Indians outside the northeast, and entirely unknown to global audiences. That is precisely the gap that Sarma is hoping a big-budget Hindi film, directed by one of Bollywood's most commercially proven filmmakers, can begin to close.