Tribute to Former Union Minister Shri P Shiva Shankar (1929–2017)
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Punjala Shiv Shankar (10 August 1929–27 February 2017) was an Indian politician. He served as the Minister of External Affairs, Law, and Petroleum. He was a very influential minister in Indira Gandhi’s and Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinets and was one of the most senior politicians in India. He also served as Governor of Sikkim from 1994 to 1995 and Governor of Kerala from 1995 to 1996.
I affectionately call Shiv Shankar uncle. Uncle blessed my daughter Apoorva on her 15th Birthday celebrations in 2007. He was always affectionate to me & my family. I was lucky to have personally interacted and learnt from his humble and successful life.
He hails from Mamidipally village at the outskirts of Hyderabad. He is one among 11 children and came from a agriculture backward class family. During his youth years, he ran away from his job at a cloth merchant in Hyderabad, along with elder brother to Amritsar, Punjab. He enrolled himself in B.A. LLB (Hons), while selling and polishing shoes at the local railway station in the evenings. During this time, his elder brother died of starvation in Amritsar. Shiv Shanker had no money to perform the cremation, let alone send the body home. PM Manmohan Singh was his junior at Hindu College, Amritsar. After graduating, he returned to Hyderabad and started law practice.
In 1972 he got appointed as AP High Court Judge. I remember as a child, I rode on my father’s motorcycle to attend his felicitations in Dhood Bowli, Old City Hyderabad. He then resigned as High Court Judge and went back to his practice.
The whole country was in turmoil in 1976, due to emergency in India. That resulted in Smt.Indira Gandhi losing power to Janata Party, led by Lok Bandhu Shri Jayaprakash Narayan. Mrs. Indira Gandhi was put in Jail and had to face many court cases. During that time, his friend and Union Minister of State Shri Hans Raj Bharadhwaj introduced him to Smt. Indira Gandhi. He diligently fought the cases representing Smt.Indira Gandhi and finally was successful in getting them cleared and paved way for her come back victory in 1980. She never forgot the favor, held him in high regard and appointed him as Union Law Minister. He never looked back from that point onwards and went to play key role at the center. He was given many prestigious portfolios of Law, Energy, External Affairs, HRD and many bureaucrats loved his thought leadership and strong work ethics.
While performing his duties for the country, he was still accessible to his friends and backward class community brethren back in Hyderabad. He helped many youngsters including me after my engineering.
After active politics, Govt of India appointment him as Governor of Sikkim & Kerala. My association with him started during his family visits to US in 2005. He took time to meet with young & old and shared many of his life experiences as loyalist of Smt. Indira Gandhi, his key assignments at the center or meeting Saddam Hussein and other world leaders.
I was surprised to listen about his life role models ..Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru. He told us that Mahatma Gandhi, first time in human history, integrated politics with spiritualism. Panditji was once campaigning for Congress Party in UP. Just before getting onto the stage, he asked who the opponent was. Someone said it was Acharya Narendra Dev of Socialist Party. He then started praising Acharya on the stage saying he is the Professor at Prestigious Kashi VidyaPeet and asked everyone in the crowd to vote for the opponent.
Shiva Shankar uncle took care of his health by regular swimming and healthy diet even in his late seventies. We never could guess his age and he always smiled when we were taking guesses at his age.
He led an accomplished life by rising from utter poverty, becoming a beacon of hope for backward classes, being humble all along and finally leaving a legacy for future generations. I am truly blessed to have known him personally and cherish his memories.
