At the actual moment of the transfer of power to a former dependency, the mode of departure often reflected the independence process, whether friendly or not. India on 14–15 August 1947 was the first, and remains the most poignant because of Nehru's mellifluous words:

Delirious crowds mobbed Mountbatten's vice-regal coach. Nehru scrambled aboard. Some onlookers, nearly crushed beneath its wheels, were pulled up: an Indian woman with infants, the Polish wife of a British officer, an Indian press reporter. Next morning, the crowds unharnessed the horses and dragged the carriage themselves, cheering the British and letting off fireworks. It was just like some huge traditional Hindu mela, or chaotic tamasha (free for all); Khushwant Singh, a journalist, commented in amazement that it was as if ‘this nation had become more pro-British than it had ever been since the British came’. (It was much quieter in Karachi, though.)

Nine months later in Palestine, the atmosphere was grim.