It's been a busy week for Australian diplomats in India.

This week, Milton Dick, the Labor MP for Pauline Hanson's old seat of Oxley, asked her about a series of paintings on display at the Australian High Commission in New Delhi.

Mr Dick: Who's your favourite, Pauline? Not Gough Whitlam? Senator Hanson: Oh God, no. No. Mr Dick (laughing): Don Bradman, he's your favourite politician? The Don? Senator Hanson: No. Ah, John Gorton? Mr Dick: Or Menzies? Robert Menzies? Senator Hanson: Yes. Mr Dick: I thought it'd be Menzies.

By the time you're reading this, their five-member parliamentary delegation will be safely back on Australian soil, after nearly a week on the subcontinent.

The now-former Senate president Stephen Parry was meant to come too, but unfortunately he had some, ah, passport issues, and was a late scratching.

Alongside the serious stuff — visits to India's Parliament, talk of closer ties etcetera — there was of course a reception at the High Commission.

The ABC even scored an invite, so I dusted off my suit jacket and headed along.

Inside, I was immediately struck by a series of incredibly lifelike portraits of Australian prime ministers past and — this being India — Sir Donald Bradman.

The painter, Ishfar Ali, 31, is a policeman in the restive Kashmir region.

In Kashmir, people do demand portraits to be exactly like photograph. ( ABC News: James Bennett )

Since India's inception, it has been the subject of a three-way tussle between India, Pakistan and separatists.

But how different is being policeman in this dangerous environment on one hand, and doing painting on other hand?

"There is not much scope for art in Kashmir. People there don't have knowledge about it. It is hard to get work there as a painter, therefore I have to join police force," Ali says.

But, as luck would have it, in Kashmir's Government, there's an Australian connection.

Melbourne University academic Amitabh Mattoo is also an adviser to the state's chief minister, and that's how Ali got his break.

"First, I made a portrait of then-chief minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed. He really liked it and introduced me to Amitabh Mattoo, who also asked me to make a portrait," he says.

"I made it and he really liked it. Then, I made eight portraits of former Australian prime ministers and Bradman."

A lot of the paintings look almost like photographs. ( ABC News: James Bennett )

A lot of the paintings look almost like photographs. And there's a reason for it.

"In Kashmir, people do demand portraits to be exactly like photographs. People do give us their photographs and we work on them," he says.

"They do want their portrait to be exact copy of photograph. This is main reason why my portraits look like photographs."

Back at the party, and before Mr Dick had begun joshing Senator Hanson, I'd asked her what she thought of them.

"Look, I think Robert Menzies," she said.

But as she gestured — a disaster.

"Oh, sorry! That's Gough Whitlam!"

Two diametrically opposed ideological titans of the 20th century Australian politics, mixed up.

"I can't believe it! There, I thought... It is Gough Whitlam! And I had a photograph with Gough Whitlam," she said.

The full horror dawned on Senator Hanson, that she'd been photographed with the left's pin-up prime minister.

"I can't believe it. He is not my favourite! He is not my favourite! I've got to take it all back, I have to have this photo taken again!" she said.

Ishfar Ali says the politicians have told him to exhibit his work in Australia. ( ABC News: James Bennett )

When I met Ali this week — a couple of days after the event — he at least seemed blissfully unaware of Gough-gate.

Having talked to a few of the Australian politicians, Ali said they appreciated his paintings.

"They are really happy. They told me that they will display my work, organise an exhibition of portraits in Australia. I am now hopeful that they will call me to Australia soon," he says.

A chance perhaps, for Australians to have a photo with the 20th century prime minister of their choice.