Unusually, no member of the British royal family attended the independence ceremony on the island because of security concerns.

Princess Alexandra was due to attend but after communal violence the British minister of state for the Commonwealth, Lord Shepherd, advised that her visit be cancelled.

[2] Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, visited Mauritius for three days (24–26 March) in 1972, as part of a tour of Asia and Africa.

They were met by a crowd of nearly a quarter of a million people, and rode through the city in an open-topped car.

[5] The flag consisted of the coat of arms of Mauritius in banner form: quarterly azure and or, in the first quarter a lymphad of the last in the second, 3 palm trees eradicated vert, in the third, a key in pale the wards downwards gules, and in the issuant, from the base a pile, and in chief a mullet argent.