Without reading the documents directly, we are left with individuals’ interpretations of the purpose, and the extent of the purpose of various policies, just as we are left not knowing - from the actual documents - what, if any, was the necessary context for any certain possible U.S. action to move from a possibility to a reality.
I doubt the policies of the Nixon administration were as much pro-Pakistan and anti-India during the 1971 conflict as they were desirous of “keeping the status-quo-ante” in the region.
The entire cold-war era was dominated by keeping “the balance of power” in most regions in the world.
India at the time insisted on the pretenses of the “non-aligned” movement, of which it was a leader; while the U.S. knew the “non-aligned” movement was spearheaded by Soviet influences and it’s purpose was not that certain nations would be “non-aligned” but in fact simply to assure they would be NOT ALIGNED with the U.S. The Soviets became India’s biggest arms supplier during that era of “non-alignment”.
In spite of all that, the U.S. was still more concerned that the balance of power between India and Pakistan not be upset, not go down to total war with each other, not result in one or the other being so threatened that such a war would ensue. No doubt some of what the U.S. was doing may have looked to some Indian’s as a threat to them, but I doubt that was the greater part of U.S. intentions.
This may be supported as more true than the Times of India (and many Indians) would like to admit, in as much as many of the thought to be possible actions by the U.S., against India, never actually took place, in the end.
Again, I suspect that is due to the fact that such possibilities were not open-ended possibilities but depended on the context, particularly was the status-quo-ante in the region in danger.
From Indian POV NAM was not meant to be anti-American organization (even though later on India herself turned very anti-US for obvious reasons). India was a young nation that barely shook off the yolk of centuries of colonization by the West (experienced a painful partition with Pakistan) and did not want turn into another cold war hot bed like Korea, Vietnam or Afghanistan. India genuinely wanted to keep both superpowers at bay without antagonizing either. It didn't quite work out. From Indian perspective, America had an exaggerated sense of righteousness that US represented the free world and every country must join her lead. Nothing wrong with that, except India (and countries following India's lead)just wanted to stay out of it. And that caused enormous chagrin for the US.
As for “keeping the status-quo-ante” in the region.....status quo itself was the problem for India. You forget that in 1971 Pakistan with US arms and financial aid started a mass genocide in East Pakistan. 10 million refugees poured into India (India herself was grappling famine and massive poverty about the time). According to Indian government estimates it was cheaper to fight a war then to let another 10 million refugees come in. Status-quo was unacceptable to India. Besides for India there was no such thing as “status-quo” or “balance of power”; It was already upset with American involvement and large arms supply and financial aid to the Pakistani military junta. It was only a matter of time after which they initiated a war against India.
As for US military intervention not taking place....there are a lot of factors to consider such as Leonid Brezhnev threatening Nixon. Indo-Soviet friendship treaty would have got Soviet directly involved in the war in case of US military invasion on India. Secondly US military was already overstretched and losing the fight in Vietnam. Very unlikely they would initiate hostilities against a larger country like India with growing opposition to war back home. Lastly Indian military action was swift and decisive, it did not give any window of opportunity to US to hold off or retaliate against Indian forces.
And my personal opinion would be.... somewhere inside Nixon knew India was doing the right thing by coming to the aid of the Bengalis being massacred by Pakistan so he never made any wrong move. He just didn’t like the idea that this wasn’t happening under US auspices. He didn’t like the idea of losing to a woman from the third world. And he didn’t like seeing his ally’s ass being kicked right under his nose.