The correct answer is The participation of women was absent. Explanation & Key Takeaways: Swadeshi movement: • The Swadesh Movement had its genesis in the anti-partition movement which was started to oppose the British decision to partition Bengal. Hence statement 1 is correct. • The Government’s decision to partition Bengal had been made public in December 1903. • The real motive behind the partition plan was the British desire to weaken Bengal, the nerve centre of Indian nationalism. • Trying to woo the Muslims, Curzon, the viceroy at that time, argued that Dacca could become the capital of the New Muslim Viceroys and kings. • Thus, it was clear that the Government was up to its old policy of propping up Muslim communalists to counter the Congress and the national movement. • Moderates Agitation (1903-05): • During the period, the leadership was provided by men like Surendranath Benerjea, K.K. Mitra and Prithwishchandra Ray. • The methods adopted were petitions to the Government, public meetings, memoranda, and propaganda through pamphlets and newspapers such as Hitabadi, Sanjibani and Bengalee. • Their objective was to exert sufficient pressure on the Government through an educated public opinion in India and England to prevent the unjust partition of Bengal from being implemented. • Militant Movement: • After 1905, the Extremists acquired a dominant influence over the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal. Hence statement 2 is correct. • There were three reasons for this: • The Moderate-led movement had failed to yield results. • The divisive tactics of the Governments of both the Bengals had embittered the nationalists; and • The Government had resorted to suppressive measures, which included atrocities on students— many of whom were given corporal punishment; ban on public singing of Bande Mataram; restriction on public meetings; prosecution and long imprisonment of swadeshi workers; clashes between the police and the people in many towns; arrests and deportation of leaders; and suppression of freedom of the press. • Among the several forms of struggle thrown up by the movement were: • Boycott of foreign goods: This included boycott and public burning of foreign cloth, the boycott of foreign-made salt or sugar, refusal by priests to ritualize marriages involving the exchange of foreign goods, refusal by washermen to wash foreign clothes. This form of protest was met with great success at the practical and popular level. • Public meeting and procession: These emerged as major methods of mass mobilization and simultaneously as forms of popular expression. • Crops of volunteers of ‘Samitis’: Samitis such as the Swadesh Bandhab Samiti of Ashwini Kumar Dutta (in Barisal) emerged as a very popular and powerful method of mass mobilization. • Imaginative use of traditional popular festivals and meals: The idea was to use such occasions as a means of reaching out to the masses and spreading political messages. For instance, Tilak’s Ganapati and Shivaji festivals became a medium of swadeshi propaganda not only in western India but also in Bengal. In Bengal also, the traditional folk theatre forms were used for the purpose. • Emphasis is given to self-reliance or ‘Atma shakti’: This implied re-assertion of national dignity, honor, and confidence and social and economic regeneration of the villages. In practical terms, it included social reforms and campaigns against caste oppression, early marriage, dowry system, consumption of alcohol, etc. • Program of swadeshi or national education: Bengal National Collage, inspired by Tagore’s Shantiniketan, was set with Aurobindo Ghosh as its principal. Soon national schools and colleges sprang up in various parts of the country. On August 15, 1906, the National Council of Education was set up to organize a system of education—literary, scientific and technical—on national lines and under national control. Education was to be imparted through the medium of vernaculars. A Bengal Institute of Technology was set up for technical education and funds were raised to send students to Japan for advanced learning. Hence statement 4 is correct. • Swadeshi or indigenous enterprises: The swadeshi spirit also found expression in the establishment of swadeshi textile mills, soap and match factories, tanneries, banks, insurance companies, shops, etc. These enterprises were based more on patriotic zeal than on business acumen. • Mass Participation: • Students came out in large numbers to propagate and practice swadeshi, and to take a lead in organizing picketing of shops selling foreign goods. • Police adopted a repressive attitude towards the students. • Schools and colleges whose students participated in the agitation were to be penalized by disaffiliating them or stopping grants and privileges to them. • Students who were found guilty of participation were to be disqualified for government jobs or for government scholarships, and disciplinary action—fine, expulsion, arrest, scholarships, etc. was to be taken against them. • Women, who were traditionally home-centered, especially those of the urban middle classes, took an active part in processions and picketing. Hence statement 3 is incorrect. • From now onwards, they were to play a significant role in the national movement. • Some of the Muslims participated—Barrister Abdul Rasul, Liaqat Hussain, Guzanvi, Maulana Azad (who joined one of the revolutionary terrorist groups)—but most of the upper and middle-class Muslims stayed away or, led by Nawab Salimullah of Dacca, supported the partition on the plea that it would give them a Muslim-majority East Bengal.