By Kanishka Singh and Nandita Bose
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Indian Prime Minister&nbsp;Narendra&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;denied that&nbsp;discrimination&nbsp;against minorities existed under his government during a press conference with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday, despite rights groups and State Department reports of abuses.
Biden said he discussed human rights and other democratic values with&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;during their talks in the White House.
Asked at the press conference what steps he was willing to take to "improve the rights of Muslims and other minorities in your country and to uphold free speech,"&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;suggested they did not need to be improved.
"Our Constitution and our government, and we have proved democracy can deliver. When I say deliver - caste, creed, religion, gender, there is no space for any&nbsp;discrimination&nbsp;(in my government),"&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;told reporters.
In reports on human rights and&nbsp;religious&nbsp;freedom, the State Department raised concerns over treatment of Muslims, Hindu Dalits, Christians and other&nbsp;religious&nbsp;minorities in&nbsp;India&nbsp;while also listing a crackdown on journalists.
Rights advocates and dozens of lawmakers from Biden's Democratic Party urged him to raise the issue publicly with&nbsp;Modi, whose Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has held power since 2014.
PROTESTERS DECRY&nbsp;MODI'S REMARKS
Dozens of protesters gathered near the White House on Thursday.
"Modi&nbsp;should think why that was the first question asked to him in the press briefing. It's obvious to all there is rights abuse in&nbsp;India," said Ajit Sahi, a protester and advocacy director at the&nbsp;Indian American Muslim Council.
"Modi's comments (that there is no&nbsp;religious&nbsp;discrimination&nbsp;by his government) is a complete lie.&nbsp;India&nbsp;has become a black-hole for&nbsp;religious&nbsp;minorities," said Raqib Hameed Naik, the founder of Hindutva Watch, a group that monitors reports of attacks on&nbsp;Indian minorities.
India's importance for the U.S. to counter China and the economic ties between the countries make it difficult for Washington to criticize human rights in the world's largest democracy, political analysts said. Biden rolled out the red carpet for&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;on Thursday.
The only two Muslim women members of the U.S. Congress - Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib - along with some other progressive lawmakers like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, boycotted&nbsp;Modi's address to the Congress on Thursday, citing allegations of abuse of&nbsp;Indian dissidents and minorities, especially Muslims.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said&nbsp;Modi's "aggressive Hindu nationalism" has "left little space for&nbsp;India's&nbsp;religious&nbsp;minorities."
The benefits of the&nbsp;Indian government's policies are accessible to everyone,&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;said. Rights groups have asserted, however, that dissidents, minorities and journalists have come under attack since&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;took office.
India&nbsp;has slid from 140th in the World Press Freedom Index in 2014 to 161st this year, its lowest point, while also leading the list for the highest number of internet shutdowns globally for five consecutive years.
The U.N. human rights office described a 2019 citizenship law as "fundamentally discriminatory" for excluding Muslim migrants. Critics have pointed to anti-conversion legislation that challenged the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief and the revoking of Muslim-majority Kashmir's special status in 2019 as well.
There has also been demolition of properties owned by Muslims in the name of removing illegal construction; and a ban on wearing the hijab in classrooms in Karnataka when the BJP was in power in that state.
"The protection of the Muslim minority in a majority Hindu&nbsp;India, that is something worth mentioning," former U.S. President Barack Obama, whom&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;calls a close friend, told CNN in an interview aired on Thursday.
"If you do not protect the rights of ethnic minorities in&nbsp;India, then there is a strong possibility that&nbsp;India&nbsp;at some point starts pulling apart," Obama said of what he would have told&nbsp;Modi&nbsp;now.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Nandita Bose; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Grant McCool and Michael Perry)

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Narendra Modi denies religious discrimination exists in India