Revolution
On 17 August 1945, 11 days after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Sukarno proclaimed Indonesia’s independence in Jakarta. Before the Dutch could return to restore order, Balinese militants moved to seize weapons from the Japanese. The subsequent war of independence against the Dutch lasted for more than four years. On 20 November 1946, the Battle of Marga was fought in Tabanan in central Bali. Colonel I Gusti Ngurah Rai, 29 years old, led his 95 guerrillas in a last-ditch battle in which all were killed by aerial bombardment-a reenactment of the ‘puputans’ of 40 years earlier. T

oday you see Ngurah Rai’s name commemorated on street signs all over the island; Bali’s international airport is named in his honor. Although Balinese resistance was broken, the Indonesians eventually won the war. In 1946 the Dutch made Bali the headquarters of their federal “Republic of East Indonesia” (NIT), which they backed as a rival to the revolutionary republic based on Java. Their plan was to one day merge the island into a pro-Dutch federation. The Dutch tried to build support among the people by promising to revitalize Bali’s devastated economy.

But the Dutch lost their chance at dividing the islands when they broke their treaty with the new government and launched a direct attack on republic headquarters in Yogyakarta in central Java. After this “police action” proved ineffectual, Holland formally transferred the former Netherlands East Indies-including Bali-to Indonesian authorities in 1949. The Dutch left behind their most precious legacy-a wildly diverse Indonesian nation welded into a unitary state.

The New Republic
Following the exit of the Dutch came constant bickering between the military, secessionists, communists, conservatives, and religious fanatics.The new country experimented with a democratic constitution; cabinets turned over every six months.

To stop the chaos, President Sukarno declared in 1956 his policy of “Guided Democracy,” involving the creation of a National Council made up of members handpicked by himself. Sukarno declared the age-old Indonesian tradition of ‘mufakat’, or decision through consensus, would best suit Indonesia as a method of decision-making. Political parties and legislative bodies were abolished.

On Bali, the old power arrangements continued, with the various principalities converted into ‘kabupaten’ and the rajas or members of their families assuming the office of bupati (mayor). In the years following the establishment of Sukarno’s extralegal “Guided Democracy,” Bali came to distrust the arrogant, incompetent, and corrupt centralized regime. Jakarta, in turn, resented the special treatment Bali had received from the Dutch; many in the government also felt the Balinese had cooperated all too willingly with their former colonial masters.

Though Sukarno was half Balinese, he showed little empathy for the Balinese and their plight. In the late colonial period, the island had been one of the best-administered regions in the archipelago, but under the new republic it became one of the most neglected and dependent.

By 1962, the island was relying on injections of 300 tons of rice per month from the powers in Jakarta. A clique of corrupt Sukarnoists and new Balinese capitalists, both civilian and military, lorded it over the landless peasants, aggressively jockeying for state patronage and competing with each other for wealth and power at the expense of the natives. Village administration, local ‘adat’, and large public rituals were redefined and appropriated by Indonesian government institutions to enhance state authority. Bad government led to the disintegration of the island’s economy.

Government offices were filled with bungling bureaucrats who insisted on bribes before performing even the most routine services. Sukarno meanwhile treated Bali like his own private playground. He and his entourage visited the island constantly; demanding special dance performances are staged; abducting Balinese women for sexual favors, commandeering without payment vehicles, paintings and whatever else seized their fancy. Advance squads of soldiers would sweep in to shoot dogs and pigs so parties of devout Muslim visitors would not be revolted by sight of the unclean creatures.

What did the Sukarno era leave behind? A former Dutch resthouse at Tampaksiring converted to one of Sukarno’s private palaces, the eyesore of the Bali Beach Hotel at Sanur, and the establishment of Bali’s only tertiary institute, the Udayana University of Denpasar.