It is shown that , in supergravity models of inflation where the gauge kinetic function of a gauge field is modulated by the inflaton , we can obtain a new inflationary attractor solution , in which the roll-over of the inflaton suffers additional impedance due to the vector field backreaction . As a result , directions of the scalar potential which , due to strong Kähler corrections , become too steep and curved to normally support slow-roll inflation can now naturally do so . This solves the infamous \eta -problem of inflation in supergravity and also keeps the spectral index of the curvature perturbation mildly red despite \eta of order unity . This mechanism is applied to a model of hybrid inflation in supergravity with a generic Kähler potential . The spectral index of the curvature perturbation is found to be 0.97 - 0.98 , in excellent agreement with data . The gauge field can act as vector curvaton generating statistical anisotropy in the curvature perturbation . However , this anisotropy could be possibly observable only if the gauge coupling constant is unnaturally small .