Gorgeous George, who called India a brute, finds friend in Jaya

Certainly, Jaitley’s defence of a man who was investigated by the BBC in 1996-98 of having been the secret recipient of over 500,000 pounds by Bhutto’s government for promoting its line on Kashmir, is unusual.

Awarded a top Pakistani honour, besides being a founder of the UK-based National Lobby on Kashmir, Galloway spent much of the last decade also fulminating about the ‘‘brutal repression in Kashmir.’’

Called ‘‘Gorgeous George’’ in London, because of his penchant for natty shirts and ties, the Labour MP caught Jaitely’s attention in 1999, during a trip she made to a women’s conference of the Baa’th party in Baghdad. Galloway was then also in town to campaign for the treatment of a 12-year-old girl called Mariam, then suffering from cancer.

The Mariam Appeal, which caught the imagination of scores of people and raised not insubstantial money, was also said to have come in handy for travelling to Israel. Galloway later admitted the charge.

‘Having consistently raised his voice against the sanctions which debilitated women and children in Iraq,’’ Jaitley wrote in her ‘‘opinion’’ piece, ‘‘(Galloway) has been landed with the accusation that he was in the pay of Saddam Hussein and benefitted through lucrative contracts…Accusing George Galloway of having oil interests is like the country which dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, spread Agent Orange, the deadly chemical weapons maiming generations in Vietnam, finding some chemicals in a pesticide factory in Iran and saying Eureka, we have found it!’’ she added.

Asked why she was defending a man who wrote to former Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif to send him money that had been promised by Benazir for Kashmir — some of which she could not deliver because her government fell two weeks before — Jaitley told The Indian Express that just because ‘‘many MPs take a pro-Pakistan line, doesn’t condemn them forever.’’

In many other countries, Jaitley pointed out, rules for ‘‘funding and lobbying’’ were substantially different from those in India. ‘‘It’s not considered bad to take money for raising an issue,’’ she said.

She, however, pointed out that she was not making ‘‘any connections’’ in her signed article on Galloway and Iraq with Galloway’s beliefs on Kashmir.

K. Natwar Singh, the head of the Congress party’s foreign affairs cell, was dismissive. ‘‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,’’ he said, adding that Galloway’s record is ‘‘well-known by someone who’s wholly opposed to India on Jammu & Kashmir. Why should someone in India defend him?’’

Significantly, neither Surendra Arora, the chief of the BJP foreign affairs cell as well as another cell member R C Arora, agreed to comment on Jaitley’s article, saying they had not seen the story. Both Aroras are retired diplomats.

But Galloway’s trysts with both Iraq and Pakistan have nevertheless pretty much caught the recent imagination of the British media. The Daily Telegraph, which first ran the story last week about the British MP’s alleged Saddam Hussein payoffs, has been generously splashing his Kashmir connection on its front pages.

In London, all sides admit, Galloway’s so-called Kashmir Files are a big can of worms. And here’s the story, according to the BBC, so far.

In 1996, a secret account in London by the Pakistan High Commission was set up to run operations of ‘‘national interest.’’ Islamabad agreed to pay for the operation of an English-language newspaper out of its Pakistan Projection Fund, to ‘‘energetically lobby’’ for its line on Kashmir. One of its directors was Galloway, who is also said to have controlled one-third of its shares. The paper was called the East.

Two weeks before its launch, disaster struck. To cut a long story short, the Benazir government fell and Nawaz Sharif was elected the new PM of Pakistan.

Over the next few months, Galloway wrote his now-famous letters to the new PM, pointing out that he desperately needed funds because of all the expenditure already incurred.

Over the next few months, nearly 300,000 pounds was drawn in favour of Asian Voice Ltd and handed over to Galloway.