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Pakistan Independence Celebrations in Karachi; Viceroy addresses Pakistan Constituent Assembly

Transfer of power ceremony takes place and independence for Pakistan is celebrated.

Extract from Governor-General Mountbatten’s speech to the Consituent Assembly of Pakistan on 14th August:

“Tomorrow two new sovereign States will take their place in the Commonwealth: not young nations, but the heirs to old and proud civilisations: fully independent States, whose leaders and statesmen, already known and respected throughout the world whose poet and philosophers, scientists, and warriors, have made their imperishable, contribution to the service of mankind: not immature governments or weak, but fit to carry their great share of responsibility for the peace and progress of the world. The birth of Pakistan is an event in history. We, who are part of history, and are helping to make it, are not well-placed, even if we wished, to moralise on the event, to look back and survey the sequence of the past that led to it. History seems sometimes to move with the infinite slowness of a glacier, and sometimes to rush forward in a torrent. Just now, in this part of the world our united efforts have melted the ice and moved some impediments in the stream, and we are carried onwards in the full flood. There is no time to look back. There is time only to look forward. I wish to pay tribute to the great men, your leaders, who helped to arrive at a peaceful solution for the transfer of power.”

Source: ‘Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, Thursday, 14th August, 1947’ cited in https://na.gov.pk/uploads/documents/1434523887_782.pdf

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