User:Jethwarp/Viren J. Shah

Viren J. Shah (May 12, 1926 - March 9, 2013) was an Indian politician and one-time Governor of the Indian State of West Bengal.

Shah was a member of Lok Sabha from 1967 to 1970 and of Rajya Sabha during 1975 -1981 and 1990-1996. He had served as Treasurer of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Shah was chairman emeritus of Mukand Steel, a steel and engineering company in Mumbai, where he held the position of managing director for 27 years from 1972 to 1999.

Viren J. Shah (May 12, 1926 - March 9, 2013) Mr. Viren J Shah was a leader of vision and dynamism for the Indian Industry in an environment that was less friendly to industry than it is today. He was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mukand Ltd. from 1972 to 1999. He association with Mukand Ltd., a leading engineering company in India, goes back more than 5 decades commencing from 1945 when he joined Jeewan Limited, the managing agents of the company.

He was President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), President of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC), Member for many years of the Managing Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and President also of the Indian National Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). He was Founder Chairman of Steel Manufacturers Association of India and Chairman of the Steel Rolling Mills Association of India as well. A former Trustee of Bombay Port Trust, he was Chairman of the Board of Visitors of St. George’s Hospital, Mumbai – one of the largest public hospitals in the city. He was a Member of the Board of Governors of National Institute for Training in Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai and a Member of the Council of the Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bangalore.

He played his role as a citizen with deeper commitment and seriousness in varied ways. An active participant in India’s struggle for freedom, he was Joint Secretary, Junagadh Rajyaprajamandal, which spearheaded the movement for the merger of the State of Junagadh into the Indian Union. He fought for freedom from tyranny during the years of Emergency from 19775-77. At a time when most others crawled when they were asked only to bend, he showed rare courage in standing up, risking his own liberty in defence of the liberty of others and was incarcerated in 1976 in two of the country’s notorious prisons - Arthur Road, Mumbai and Tihar, Delhi. He re-lived the trauma when attempts were made in 1980 to institute his re-trial as an accused in the Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy Case.

He was a Member of Parliament, the Lok Sabha (1967-70) and Rajya Sabha (1975-81 and 1990-96). As a three-term M.P., he was a Member of the Parliamentary Committee of Public Undertakings, Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Finance, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Fertilizer Pricing, Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Defence and Member also of the Public Accounts Committee. He was a Member of National Integration Council (NIC). He had been a Member successively of the National Executive of two major political parties and member of several policy-making bodies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was Governor of West Bengal during the years 1999 to 2004.

It has indeed been a rare record of public service by an industrialist.