His father, Amjadulla Shah, was a district judge at Mirzapur, and his mother was Qamrun Bibi the sister of Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari.
He obtained his bachelor's degree in sciences and doctor of medicine from Geneva high school, Switzerland and University of Paris, France.
Shaukat House at Rajpur Road was a shelter for political activists and progressive writers like Majaz and Suryakant Tripathi.
Shaukat regularly helped Communist Party of India (CPI) with financial support due to his commitment towards socialism.
[6] Agreeing with the request of Jawaharlal Nehru, he contested Second Lok Sabha general election in 1957 from his native Rasra Constituency but lost to Sarjoo Pandey, the candidate from Communist Party of India.
In this electoral contest former Prime Minister of India Chandra Shekhar secured the third spot garnering twenty percent of the total votes.