It's hard to imagine a small group of university undergraduates playing a key role in Singapore's struggle against colonialism in the 1950s and 1960s. Yet this can be said of the University of Malaya Socialist Club, a political club formed in 1953 by mainly Medical and Arts students.

A cloud of fear hung over the student population on the Bukit Timah campus, after an earlier group of student activists were arrested by the Special Branch for their involvement in communist underground activities in January 1951.