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.
In 1981, Anwar Zeb and his associates started the revival of DSF in partnership with the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP).
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.
This leftist and secular organization became more popular in North-West Frontier Province (Pakhtunkhwa), which is now a center of Islamist militancy.