Born into an upper middle-class Jewish family, Shiva Rao spent her early career at the Vienna House of Children.

Later, she co-founded a national programme for the development of handicrafts and handloom products, and continued to promote Indian made crafts later in her career.

[1] In 1925, after attending the 50th anniversary of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Chennai, she decided not to return to Austria, and stayed on to become associated with the Indian education system, beginning with head of a Montessori school in Varanasi.

[4] She was highly critical of authoritarian types of teaching and believed that the needs of children should be identified and met, along with better laws for women.

"[1] With Shiva Rao as lead, the AIWC was able to have access to the Rau committee, chaired by her brother-in-law and appointed in 1941 by the government to examine issues in Hindu law pertaining to women's inheritance.

[5] By 1946, she had become an important member of the AIWC, which made decisions that could be ratified by then new Constituent Assembly and which revealed contradictions in the proposed Hindu code bills.

[8][9] Other members included Lakshmi N. Menon, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Renuka Ray and Hannah Sen.[10] Along with Fori Nehru and Prem Bery, she helped set up an employment campaign, 'Refugee Handicrafts', for refugee women in the 1947 Delhi camps following partition.

[14] The Indian artist Anjolie Ela Menon recalled that post independence, Shiva Rao was one of a small group of women "who took it upon themselves to preserve and develop handicrafts and the handloom industry, without any renumeration".