This article explores the nature and limitations of humanitarian political economy by discussing metropolitan British responses to a major famine that took place in the Agra region of north-central India in 1837–38. This disaster played a significant role in catalyzing wider debates about the impact of East India Company governance and the place of the subcontinent within the post-emancipation British Empire. By comparing the responses of organization such as the Aborigines Protection Society and British India Society to that of proponents of the newly emergent indenture system, the paper seeks to contextualize responses to the famine in terms both of longer histories of famine in South Asia and of the specific imperial circumstances of the late 1830s. In doing so, it explores how ideas of agricultural distress in India fed into competing strategies to utilize Indian labor in the service of colonial commodity production both within India and around the empire.

中文翻译：

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英国人道主义政治经济学和印度饥荒，1838-1842

本文通过讨论英国大都市对 1837-38 年印度中北部阿格拉地区发生的重大饥荒的反应，探讨了人道主义政治经济学的性质和局限性。这场灾难在引发关于东印度公司治理的影响以及次大陆在解放后的大英帝国中的位置的更广泛辩论方面发挥了重要作用。通过将原住民保护协会和英属印度协会等组织的反应与新出现的契约制度的支持者的反应进行比较，本文试图根据南亚和1830 年代后期的具体帝国情况。在这样做，