My dependencies weren't right, so once I fixed them, it started recognizing. For anybody looking to include Batik in their maven based netbeans module I am including the dependencies below.
<dependency>
<groupId>batik</groupId>
<artifactId>batik-swing</artifactId>
<version>1.6-1</version>
<type>jar</type>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>batik</groupId>
<artifactId>batik-script</artifactId>
<version>1.6-1</version>
<!-- exclude xerces as Netbeans includes it -->
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>xerces</groupId>
<artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>
<!-- include xerces in test scope as unittests need it -->
<dependency>
<groupId>xerces</groupId>
<artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
<version>2.5.0</version>
<type>jar</type>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>