So we can take a look at it with 21st century eyes, and consider that actual control is a nebulous thing, and that the absentee landowners were protecting their interests, while some at least of the local ones, including anglo-irish intervened to try and help the people on their estates. but then we also have to dig into the fiasco that is the 1847 Poor Law extension relief act, which sets up systems for relief that effectively dispossess people of their land, and makes the entire thing much worse.
Did the people creating the act understand systemic behaviour well enough to predict the consequences? Do we even understand these things well enough now? The interaction between debt and market pricing, and its inevitable consequences are playing out in real time now with AI.
Ireland produced more food than it needed, even if we don't count potatoes. It was exported, mainly to England, as other markets could pay more. Plenty of other things the victorian's did to make the situation worse. Mainly thanks to free market idealists.
Pre colonial India had famines and many ways to handle them, the British did away with them. The system they set up and replaced made it a lot worse and whatever small trickle of help they provided clearly wasn't enough.
I don't know why you're trying to whitewash colonialism. That it's immoral is pretty simple, they let millions of people die for profit.