Shiv Kumar Batalvi was born on 23 July 1936 (though a few documents related to him state 8 October 1937) in the village Bara Pind Lohtian in the Shakargarh Tehsil of Gurdaspur District (now in Narowal District of Punjab, Pakistan) into a Punjabi Hindu Brahmin family to father, Pandit Krishan Gopal Sharma, the village tehsildar in the revenue department, and mother, Shanti Devi, a housewife.

In 1947, when he was aged 11, his family moved to Batala, Gurdaspur district after partition of India, where his father continued his work as a patwari and young Shiv received his primary education. Allegedly, he was a dreamy child, often vanishing for the duration of the day, to be found lying under trees by the riverbank close to the Hindu temple outside the village, lost in a brown reverie. He appears to have been fascinated by local renditions of the Hindu epic Ramayana, as well as wandering minstrel singers, snake charmers and the like – which feature as metaphors in his poetry, giving it a uniquely rural flavour .