It is not only Muslims and non-Balinese who are visibly excluded or even threatened by this discourse. It also affects Balinese Hindus who do not practise the appropriate Hinduism as portrayed in the Bali Post and as taught by the televangelist Hindu priests on Bali TV. This form of Hinduism is supported by the PHDI (Indonesian Hindu Council). Ajeg Bali is part of a larger movement to sanitise, standardise and explain Balinese Hinduism. Thus Bali TV will often have programs explaining how offerings should be made and how rituals should be performed. There are also community and city-wide youth praying competitions, enforcing ideas of stylised praying and how a Balinese should and should not communicate with God.

In addition to the standardisation of praying styles and ritual activity, ceremonial clothing has also become more uniform. Today, it is the norm to wear white for most ceremonies and black for cremation, whereas ten to 15 years ago ceremonial clothing was much more varied in colour. The Western colours of purity and grief have been appropriated by the PHDI, Bali TV and other ajeg Bali proponents and promoted as a form of standardising ritual and pakaian adat.

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Hindu-Balinese identity is enforced through pork meatballs and praying competitions.

Walking the streets of Denpasar, you will probably notice small food stalls and carts bearing red and white banners that read Bakso Krama Bali (BKB), meaning bakso (meatball soup) sold for and by Balinese. Previously, bakso was most commonly made from chicken and sold from carts by Javanese migrants. The new BKB often uses pork, thus violating halal (Islamic dietary) requirements, meaning not only that Muslims can’t eat BKB, but also that they can’t sell it. Non-Muslim Balinese therefore have a monopoly on the market.

BKB arose in an attempt to take back control over the Balinese economy from the perceived economic threat of Javanese transmigrants. Even non-BKB food stalls and carts will often paint Bakso Ajeg Bali (literally, Bakso Strengthening Bali) on their signs, or advertise that they use pork, in order to benefit from the rising popularity of BKB. BKB is a reflection of what could be interpreted as the rise of Balinese nationalist or Hindu fundamentalist sentiment in Bali.

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