One common feature of the final period of imperial rule in many a colonial territory, at all events in the British Empire, was the coming together, and then close conjunction, between the principal nationalist leaders and the last colonial rulers. Perhaps the most notable example occurred in India in 1947 as between Jawaharlal Nehru and Mountbatten. But there were many later cases too: between Senanayake and Soulbury in Ceylon; Nkrumah and Arden-Clarke in Ghana; Tunku Abdul Rahman and MacGillivray in Malaya; Abubaker and Robertson in Nigeria; Nyerere and Turnbull in Tanganyika; Kenyatta and Macdonald in Kenya; even briefly between Mugabe and Soames in Zimbabwe. There were earlier examples too in most of India's Provinces in 1937–9 (as we shall see in chapter 7). The reason for this propensity is not hard to find. For while the incoming nationalist leaders were understandably anxious to secure a firm grasp on the levers of political power, the outgoing rulers were anxious to depart in as orderly and as dignified a manner as possible. Both had a major interest in effecting a smooth transfer of power.