Democratic Students Federation (DSF) is a Left-wing student organization in Pakistan. It emerged as a splinter group of the National Students Federation(NSF) in the early 1970s when a pro-China faction of NSF parted from its pro-Moscow parent party, the Communist Party of Pakistan.
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 who was tortured and killed in military custody. Many of its leaders were thrown in prisons and punished. Surprisingly this leftist and secular organization became more popular in Pakhtunkhwa province (which seems under the clutches of extremism these days).However, its influence started to decline after the collapse of soviet Union in the early 1990s.
Famous quotes containing the words democratic, students and/or federation:
“It shone on everyone, whether they had a contract or not. The most democratic thing I’d ever seen, that California sunshine.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.”
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“Women realize that we are living in an ungoverned world. At heart we are all pacifists. We should love to talk it over with the war-makers, but they would not understand. Words are so inadequate, and we realize that the hatred must kill itself; so we give our men gladly, unselfishly, proudly, patriotically, since the world chooses to settle its disputes in the old barbarous way.”
—General Federation Of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)