Democratic Students Federation (DSF) is a

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

student organization in

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. It was first established on 13 January 1951 in Karachi by students of the

Dow Medical College Dow Medical College is a public medical school located in the city of Karachi, Sindh. It was founded in 1945 and named after British civil servant Sir Hugh Dow, Governor of Sindh. In 2003, it became a constituent college of the newly formed Do ...

, 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 Muslim League may refer to: Political parties Subcontinent ; British India *All-India Muslim League, Mohammed Ali Jinah, led the demand for the partition of India resulting in the creation of Pakistan. **Punjab Muslim League, a branch of the organ ...

), began to wither. From its inception, it was close to the

Communist Party of Pakistan The Communist Party of Pakistan ( abbr. CPP; ur, کمیونسٹ پارٹی آف پاکستان) is a communist party in Pakistan. History Founding The CPP was founded in Calcutta, India, soon after the establishment of Pakistan on 6 March 1948 ...

(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 Tse-tung Thought Its predecessor, the DSF (Democratic Students Federa ...

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. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

faction of NSF parted from its pro-

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

parent party, the

. DSF was 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 Nazeer Abbasi () (b. April 10, 1953 — d. August 9, 1980) was the youngest member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Pakistan. He was tortured to death on August 9, 1980 in government of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq while in the custody o ...

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; ps, شمال لویدیځ سرحدي ولایت, ) was a Chief Commissioner's Province of British India, established on 9 November 1901 from the north-western districts of the Punjab Province. Followin ...

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

collapse Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or telescoping objects * Collapsing user interface elements ** ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in the early 1990s.

References

Further reading