Democratic Students Federation (DSF) is a

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

student organization in

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. It was first established on 13 January 1951 in Karachi by students of the Dow Medical College, led by Mohammad Sarwar and including MRA Hashmi, Asif Jaffery, Asif Hameedi, Yousuf Ali and S Haroon Ahmed, as the organization that previously dominated campuses, the Muslim Students Federation (affiliated with the Muslim League), began to wither. From its inception, it was close to the

Communist Party of Pakistan The Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP; Urdu: ) is a communist party in Pakistan founded in 1948 by Sajjad Zaheer. History The Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) was founded in Calcutta, India, soon after the establishment of Pakistan on 6 March ...

(CPP), and therefore banned along with the CPP in 1954. Its members, however, managed to infiltrate other student organizations, notably the

National Students Federation The National Students Federation Pakistan (NSF) is a left-wing students federation in Pakistan. In the late 1960s, NSF adopted the political line of Marxism–Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Its predecessor, the DSF (Democratic Students Federat ...

founded in 1958. It emerged as a splinter group of the National Students Federation in the early 1970s when a pro-

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

faction of NSF parted from its pro-

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

parent party, the

. In 1981, Anwar Zeb and his associates started the revival of DSF in partnership with the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). DSF was further reorganized in 1982, and quickly spread through all of Pakistan. It played an active role in uniting students, labour unions, nationalists and left wing parties to struggle against Ziaul Haq's military and fundamentalist rule. During the struggle it lost its leader Nazir Abbasi who was tortured and killed in military custody. Many of its leaders were thrown in prisons and punished. This leftist and secular organization became more popular in

North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ) was a province of British India from 1901 to 1947, of the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955, and of the Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Pakistan from 1970 to 2010. It was established on 9 November ...

(Pakhtunkhwa), which is now a center of Islamist militancy. However, its influence started to decline after the collapse of

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

in the early 1990s.

References

Further reading