Previous Year Question
The ‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Boycott’ were adopted as methods of struggle for the first time during the
Correct Answer: A
Detailed Solution
‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Boycott’ were first adopted as major methods of struggle during the agitation against the Partition of Bengal.
Viceroy Lord Curzon announced the Partition of Bengal in 1905. The partition came into effect on 16 October 1905. It was officially justified as an administrative measure, but the nationalists regarded it as a ‘divide and rule’ policy designed to divide Bengal on religious lines and weaken national unity.
Swadeshi meant adopting goods manufactured in India and promoting indigenous industries. Boycott meant rejecting British and other foreign goods. Foreign cloth was publicly burnt, while Indian cloth and other Swadeshi products became symbols of national self-reliance.
Boycott was subsequently extended beyond foreign goods. The boycott of government schools, colleges and other colonial institutions was also advocated. National education, indigenous industries and passive resistance became important programmes of the movement.
Leaders such as Rabindranath Tagore, Surendranath Banerjee, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosh and Ashwini Kumar Dutt carried the movement forward. At the Calcutta Session of the Congress in December 1906, presided over by Dadabhai Naoroji, Swaraj, Swadeshi, Boycott and National Education were accepted.