Military Parade Halted by Crowds

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26542, 18 August 1947, Page 5

Military Parade Halted by Crowds

As a climax to the celebration of India's independence, a good-natured mob of 250,000 broke up a military parade and stopped, a march-past of 1000 troops, and almost overwhelmed carriages taking Earl Mountbatten and Pandit Nehru to the Government House ceremony. In Calcutta, joyous screaming crowds nearly wrecked Government House, ripping the beautiful velvet curtains, cracking Victorian mirrors, and breaking gold-painted chairs. At Bombay, 400,000 paraded along a five-mile route in the southern part of the city to the vast Oval, where another 500.000 gathered. The parade started from Gowaliatank, where the first session of Congress was held in 1885. It took four hours to reach its destination. The Associated Press says a rainbow stole the show at the New Delhi ceremonies when Earl Mountbatten saluted the flag of India before a crowd of hundreds of thousands. Almost at the moment when an Indian officer pulled the lanyard which loosed the new flag in the breeze, a brilliant rainbow appeared. Earl Mountbatten saluted as the shouts of thousands greeted the omen in the sky. Earl Mountbatten arrived in a horsedrawn coach with- troops of lancers making way through the crowd, and was given a great reception when he joined Pandit Nehru.