Bali is an Indonesian island located at 
8°25′23″S, 115°14′55″ECoordinates: 8°25′23″S, 115°14′55″E, the western most of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east. It is one of the country’s 33 provinces with the provincial capital at Denpasar towards the south of the island.
With a population recorded as 3,151,000 in 2005, the island is home to the vast majority of Indonesia’s small Hindu minority. 93.18% of Bali’s population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, while most of the remainder follow Islam. It is also the largest tourist destination in the country and is renowned for its highly developed arts, including dance, sculpture, painting, leather, metalworking and music.
History
Bali was inhabited by Austronesian peoples by about 2,000, who migrated originally from Taiwan through Maritime Southeast Asia.[2] Culturally and linguistically, the Balinese are thus closely related to the peoples of the Indonesian archipelago, the Philippines, and Oceania.[3] Stone tools dating from this time have been found near the village of Cekik in the island’s west.[4]
Balinese culture was strongly influenced by Indian, and particularly Sanskrit culture, in a process beginning around the 1st century AD. The name Balidwipa has been discovered from various inscriptions, including the Blanjong charter issued by Sri Kesari Warmadewa in 913 AD and mentioning Walidwipa. It was during this time that the complex irrigation system subak was developed to grow rice. Some religious and cultural traditions still in existence today can be traced back to this period. The Hindu Majapahit Empire (1293–1520 AD) on eastern Java founded a Balinese colony in 1343. When the empire declined, there was an exodus of intellectuals, artists, priests and musicians from Java to Bali in the 15th century.
The First European contact with Bali is thought to have been when Dutch explorer Cornelis de Houtman arrived in 1597, though a Portuguese ship had foundered off the Bukit Peninsula as early as 1585.[citation needed] Dutch rule over Bali came later, was more aggressively fought for, and was never as well established as in other parts of Indonesia such as Java and Maluku.
In the 1840s, a presence in Bali was established, first in the island’s north, by playing various distrustful Balinese realms against each other. The Dutch mounted large naval and ground assaults first against the Sanur region and then Denpasar. The Balinese were hopelessly overwhelmed in number and armament, but rather than face the humiliation of surrender, they mounted a final defensive but suicidal assault, or puputan. Despite Dutch demands for surrender, an estimated 4,000 Balinese marched to their death against the invaders. Afterwards the Dutch governors were able to exercise little influence over the island, and local control over religion and culture generally remained intact.
Japan occupied Bali during World War II during which time a Balinese military officer, Gusti Ngurah Rai, formed a Balinese ‘freedom army’. Following Japan’s Pacific surrender in August 1945, the Dutch promptly returned to Indonesia, including Bali, immediately to reinstate their pre-war colonial administration. This was resisted by the Balinese rebels now using Japanese weapons.
On 20 November 1946, the Battle of Marga was fought in Tabanan in central Bali. Colonel I Gusti Ngurah Rai, 29 years old, finally rallied his forces in east Bali at Marga Rana, where they made a suicide attack on the heavily armed Dutch. The Balinese battalion was entirely wiped out, breaking the last thread of Balinese military resistance. In 1946 the Dutch constituted Bali as one of the 13 administrative districts of the newly-proclaimed Republic of East Indonesia, a rival state to the Republic of Indonesia which was proclaimed and headed by Sukarno and Hatta. Bali was included in the “Republic of the United States of Indonesia” when the Netherlands recognised Indonesian independence on 29 December 1949.
The 1963 eruption of Mount Agung killed thousands, created economic havoc and forced many displaced Balinese to be transmigrated to other parts of Indonesia.
Mirroring the widening of social divisions across Indonesia in the 1950s and early 1960s, Bali saw conflict between supporters of the traditional caste system, and those rejecting these traditional values. Politically, this was represented by opposing supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and the Indonesian Nationalist Party (PNI), with tensions and ill-feeling further increased by the PKI’s land reform programs.[5] An attempted coup in Jakarta was put down by forces led by General Suharto. The army became the dominant power as it instigated a violent anti-communist purge, in which the PKI was blamed for the coup. Most estimates suggest that at least 500,000 people were killed across Indonesia, with as many as 100,000 killed in Bali, equivalent to 5 per cent of the island’s population.[6] With no Islamic forces involved as in Java and Sumatra, upper-caste PNI landlords lead the extermination of PKI members.[7] The elimination of the PKI as a political force removed President Sukarno’s largest power base, and enabled Suharto to manoeuvre Sukarno out of the presidency.
On October 12, 2002, a car bomb attack in the tourist resort of Kuta killed 202 people, largely foreign tourists and injured a further 209. Further bombings occurred three years later in Kuta and nearby Jimbaran Bay.
Religion
Unlike most of Muslim-majority Indonesia, about 93.18% of Bali’s population adheres to Balinese Hinduism, formed as a combination of existing local beliefs and Hindu influences from mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. Minority religions include Islam (4.79%), Christianity (1.38%), and Buddhism (0.64%). These figures do not include immigrants from other parts of Indonesia.
Bali consists of about three million people, nearly all of whom practice the Balinese Hindu religion, a heterogeneous amalgam in which gods and demigods are worshipped together with Buddhist heroes, with the spirits of ancestors and with indigenous deities associated with agriculture and with places considered sacred. Religion as it is practiced in Bali is a composite belief system that embraces not only theology, philosophy, and mythology, but ancestor worship, animism and magic. It is supposed to pervade every aspect of traditional life.
Bali Hinduism, which has roots in Indian Hinduism and in Buddhism, adopted the animistic traditions of the indigenes, which inhabited the island around the first millennium BCE. This influence strengthened the belief that the gods and goddesses are present in all things. Every element of nature, therefore, possesses its own power, which reflects the power of the gods. A rock, tree, dagger, or woven cloth is a potential home for spirits whose energy can be directed for good or evil. Balinese Hinduism is deeply interwoven with art and ritual, and is less closely preoccupied with scripture, law, and belief than Islam in Indonesia. Ritualizing states of self-control are a notable feature of religious expression among the people, who for this reason have become famous for their graceful and decorous behavior.
Slattum, J. (2003). Balinese Masks: Spirits of an Ancient Drama. Indonesia, Asia Pacific, Japan, North America, Latin America and Europe: Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Economy
Three decades ago, the Balinese economy was largely agriculture-based in terms of both output and employment. Tourism is now the largest single industry; and as a result, Bali is one of Indonesia’s wealthiest regions. The economy, however, has suffered significantly as a result of the terrorist bombings of 2002 and 2005.
Although in terms of output, tourism is the economy’s largest industry, agriculture is still the island’s biggest employer[citation needed], most notably rice cultivation. Crops grown in smaller amounts include fruit, vegetables and other cash and subsistence crops.[citation needed] A significant number of Balinese are also fishermen. Bali is also famous for its artisans who produce batik and ikat cloth and clothing, wooden carvings, stone carvings and silverware.
Although significant tourism exists in the north, centre and east of the island, the tourist industry is overwhelmingly focused in the south. The main tourist locations are the town of Kuta (with its beach), and its outer suburbs (which were once independent townships) of Legian and Seminyak, Sanur, Jimbaran, Ubud, and the newer development of Nusa Dua. The Ngurah Rai International Airport is located near Jimbaran, on the isthmus joining the southernmost part of the island to the main part of the island. Another increasingly important source of income for Bali is what is called “Congress Tourism” from the frequent international conferences held on the island, especially after the terrorist bombings of 2002; ostensibly to resurrect Bali’s damaged tourism industry as well as its tarnished image.
Bali’s tourism brand is Bali Shanti Shanti Shanti.[8] Where Shanti derived from Sanskrit “Çantih” meaning peace.
