Early Life
His father, Farooq Paracha, was a Socialist journalist hailing from the Attock District (Makhad) in the north of the Punjab and a staunch supporter of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
Nadeem F. Paracha received his early education at the Kabul American School in Afghanistan from 1970 till 1974. His father was based as a journalist in Kabul reporting for the pro-PPP Urdu daily, Musawaat.
He returned to Pakistan in 1974 and joined the prestigious Karachi Grammar School from where he completed his O Levels in 1983. He then joined Saint Patrick's College in 1984 from where he did his Bachelors degree in Commerce in 1986. It was here that he actively joined student politics, first by joining the Peoples Students Federation, the student wing of the Pakistan Peoples Party and then forming the St. Pats Socialist Students Federation. He worked under the famous PSF leader in Karachi, Najeeb Ahmed. He was arrested a number of times for agitating against the right-wing government of General Zia and for writing and distributing anti-state literature.
After leaving college, Paracha travelled to India for many months. He returned to Pakistan and joined the University of Karachi as a Masters student of Political Science in 1988. He vigorously resumed his political activities by joining the left-wing National Students Federation. .
At the fall of the Berlin Wall and of Communism in the former Soviet Union, Paracha started calling himself an Anarchist and with a few college friends began publishing an underground anarchist newsletter called The Arousal. After dissolving The Arousal he joined Mag, Pakistan's largest English weekly magazine, as a feature-writer.
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