Indian–Indonesian cultural dialogue in comparative literature: The contributions of Rabindranath Tagore and Sanusi Pane

The influence of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore on modern Indonesian literature is quite strong, yet it has received limited attention from literary and cultural researchers. The issue arises as to why literature from India, which is rooted in Hindu culture, has had such a strong influence on Indonesian literature, even though the majority of its society is Muslim. This cultural dialogue is interesting to study because it involves transnational literature. The theoretical framework used in this study is comparative literature theory by René Wellek and Austin Warren. This research is descriptive qualitative in nature by comparing Indonesian and Indian literary works as well as the ideas of their writers. The results show that the influence of Indian literature, especially that of the Nobel laureate Tagore, is very strong on Indonesian writers such as Sanusi Pane, Muhammad Yamin, Amir Hamzah, and Amal Hamzah. On the other hand, there was resistance from the writer Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana due to this Indian influence. This debate between support and rejection emerged during the cultural polemics of the 1930s. Although the polemic continued at that time, Tagore’s influence remained deeply rooted in the works of Sanusi Pane and other writers.