The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

The Dutch force landed on Sanur beach and faced little resistance as it marched inland. Along the way, it found that all settlements had been abandoned. Only when they approached the royal palace at Denpasar did they see signs of activity. There was no army to greet them but they could see a lot of smoke rising and hear drums beating inside the palace compound. The invading force took up positions and waited. After a while, a ceremonial procession emerged from the main gate including the king, his queens and children, priests, servants and retainers. They all wore funerary garments and their finest jewellery. The women next walked up to the lined soldiers and mocked them, flinging their jewellery and gold coins at them. Then a priest took out a kris, the traditional dagger, and stabbed the king to death in full view. This seems to have been the signal for the Balinese to pull out their krises and make a last charge. The Dutch machine guns and rifles mowed them all down within minutes. Waves of men, women and children kept coming out of the palace and the Dutch kept shooting them down. There were soon mounds of dead bodies, probably numbering over a thousand. What the Dutch had just witnessed was the Balinese Hindu rite of ‘Puputan’ or the Last Stand (the Indian equivalent is called jauhar).