"[A] cultural community developed into a political people with Assamese- ness as the core element of unity. They offered a heroic resistance to the superior force of the Mughals, who invaded the Ahom kingdom a number of times but were defeated. The finest example of this spirit was witnessed in the battle of Saraighat where a heroic leader, Lachit Borphukan, inspired the Assamese to rise as one against an alien invasion. The Mughal invasions were a litmus test for the Assamese spirit. Their unified resistance against an alien power led to the consciousness of an identity, the birth of a kind of nation-ness, without the concept of naturalism."