India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka should unite

Religious Violence: I am aware of those riots that con has mentioned. but that is a small minority in a region of almost 1.5 billion people. Even that minority is reducing. Religious violence has reduced (not eliminated but reduced) since the start of this century and is continuing to decline. Even in one of the sources my opponent gave(http://www.e-ir.info...) it mentions this "However, religious conflict in India has been quite restricted. Secular Indian national identity and the existence of mixed-religion organisations in civil society have proved to be very effective in overcoming communal tensions." A secular union in South Asia will prevent such problems as they did in India. Political: Yes I agree with my opponent that India's Government is very corrupt, but then again so are many other nations. The Union that I have proposed is not a Utopia by a long shot. I merely argue that the Union will do better than the current nations independently. Besides Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh are far more corrupt than India. http://www.transparency.org... Military: Con has stated "In all their wars, India has never once managed to win convincingly against Pakistan, whose numbers have always been far inferior to their own." India has won a decisive victory against Pakistan in the war of 1971 in 14 days, Capturing East Pakistan (ok, with the help of rebels) and forming it into Bangladesh. But even if India does not have the military of a global superpower, they certainly are strong enough to force the US to stop their drone strikes on the North West Frontier and to defeat the religious extremists who plague the region. The only reason the terrorist groups in Pakistan are currently significant is because Indian troops cannot violate Pakistan's territorial integrity to attack them and the Pakistani army often works with the terrorist groups so they will obviously not attack them http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.cfr.org... Economy: "Accommodating the economically weaker countries of Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan is only going to put a larger strain on India's own economy, which, at present, is anything but stable." The economy is at present unstable because of the global financial crisis, which is why its growth rate was at about 5% in the fiscal year 2012/13. This figure is expected to rise in the 2013/14 fiscal year. http://www.financialexpress.com... "it [the economy of the proposed union] will only be better for the weaker nations, whereas India will suffer." I agree with my opponent that nations like Pakistan and Bangladesh will benefit economically from the union and yes, India will suffer to some extent but not very much. So overall, it is better for the proposed union to happen By the way, one more thing "Even what is now India has many cultures yet they all live side by side with no problem."- from my opening statement "Once again, my opponent is wrong. To state that there is "no problem" between the people of many cultures in India is highly ignorant."- my opponent's counter I detest that my opponent referred to me as ignorant, if I was ignorant I would not be debating about this topic. However a rephrasing of my initial statement is necessary - ' Even what is now India has many cultures yet they all live side by side usually with no problem (there are exceptions where communal violence has occurred). '