Not directly answering your question but as an Indian, I can tell you that statement is complete bull. There's plenty of crticism of religion in India. I've personally heard Hindus say that Muslims are terrorists in their land, Muslims say they eat Hindu gods for breakfast (beef), Christians say they're surrounded by pagans, etc, etc. Don't get me wrong, I don't think India is any less tolerant of religions than other countries but it's not some pluralistic society where religion is never criticized.

I am not a historian but I live in India and belong to Hindu religion by birth though I consider myself to be agnostic. I think what you heard is true about a good portion of India, being such a vast country our culture and belief systems are so mixed up that as you travel through the length and breadth of country, religious beliefs and tolerance vary.

I hail from the southern part of India where I have the freedom atleast among my circle of friends to openly critcise the pro-Hindu activism , or speak in general about relegious practices. But one should excercise caution if we are planning on making a public comment, somebody once commented that "faith is the fabric that holds India together"; some of these fundamental beliefs are core to the existence of a large section of people and questioning those in public is maybe not such a good idea.

I think if you go back to the very beginning of the rise of Hindu religion. I think historians would agree on this, it was designed more to be a way of living than a religion. Maybe that would be the time where one had absolute free speech.

Having said that, coming from a state where we have good representation from three major religion viz Hinduism, Christianity and Islam - I think we are a community that in general are very tolerant and peaceful. If you put all these different religions together into some other land, the result would be catastrophe with daily riots; somehow we have figured out means to forget our differences and carry on with life. There has been instances were things had slipped away, but that is expected for a country with such diversity ; it is a work in progress that will be fixed. I know very well that our ancestors made friends only on the basis of religion, but we dont - our generation practice live and let others live. Namaste!