A strong body of opinion emerged as to oppose the existing predominant view within the AISF, to cooperate and compromise with the nation's ruling classes towards a so-called progressive end.

As political differences between dissenting factions within the AISF developed, added with their negligence on student issues, it split into several local organizations which started working independently.

[36][37][38] During the COVID-19 lockdown in India,[39] SFI distributed sanitary napkins to female students in West Bengal[40] and demanded their inclusion in essential commodities in Himachal Pradesh.

[41] To combat misinformation and reach out to the migrant labourers in various places, SFI launched a campaign named "My dear friend" where verified information from government sources are translated into various Indian languages and circulated through social media.

[46] SFI and DYFI activists jointly posted 1.5 lakh (150,000) letters to the Prime Minister's office after a first information report (FIR) for sedition was lodged against 49 celebrities who condemned lynchings of Muslims, Dalits, and other minorities in India.

[47][48][49] SFI approached Supreme Court seeking directions to provide universal free vaccination to all citizens of India and to waive off the goods and service tax levied on the import of the oxygen concentrators used for personal use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[50][51] SFI along with DYFI, the youth wing of Communist Party of India (Marxist), runs Red Volunteers, Sramajibi Canteen and involves in various social works.

[58] Female candidates of the SFI won all seats in a mixed college by fielding an all-women panel for students union elections[60] in Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady in 2017.

[67][68] Earlier, the SFI had organised protests of the female hostelites of CET in February 2019 for extending the curfew timings for girls' hostels.

[68] The idea of GSCASH (Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment) was first experimented in Jawaharlal Nehru University by SFI's students union headed by Vijoo Krishnan in 1998–99.

Prominent LGBTQIA+ persons in SFI include Apratim Roy (first trans SFI West Bengal State committee member),[79] Nandhana (first Transgender member of Thrissur District committee, Kerala), Adam Harry (first trans man to become a pilot in India), Muhammed Zuhrabi (queer activist, ex-General Secretary, Pondicherry University Students' Council).