Which of the following is FALSE in the context of women, caste and reform…

Concept: Colonial-era social reformers legitimised change in two overlapping ways — by reinterpreting existing scripture/tradition to argue that a reform (like widow remarriage) was already sanctioned by it, and, in some organisations, by openly blending that tradition with rationalist or other-faith ideas rather than relying on it alone. Judging any single claim therefore means checking both the concrete historical fact AND whether the claim correctly describes an organisation's actual intellectual basis (a claim of relying "only" on one tradition is false if the organisation is known to have drawn more widely).

Application: Checking each statement against the historical record:

• Pandita Ramabai founded the Sharada Sadan, a home for widows, at Poona in 1889 — this is an accurate, well-documented fact.

• Reformers such as Vidyasagar and Ranade read ancient Dharmashastra texts closely and argued (citing sources such as the Parashara Smriti) that practices like widow remarriage were already sanctioned by scripture — this reading of ancient texts genuinely helped build support for new legislation, so the statement is accurate.

• Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's sustained campaign, grounded in that scriptural reading, directly led to the Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, which legalised widow remarriage — this statement is accurate.

• The Prarthana Samaj, founded in Bombay in 1867, was shaped by the Brahmo Samaj and combined Vedantic/Upanishadic devotionalism with rationalist, reform-minded ideas that had themselves absorbed missionary and other-faith critique — it never confined itself to Hindu texts alone. Describing its basis as drawing "only" upon Hindu texts misstates this broader, syncretic character.

Cross-check: Three of the four statements independently verify as historically accurate, and the fourth overstates the Prarthana Samaj's basis as exclusively Hindu when it was in fact a syncretic, Brahmo-influenced movement — by elimination and by direct fact-check, only that statement is false.

Result: The false statement is the one claiming the Prarthana Samaj drew only upon Hindu texts.