Her remarks came in the wake of the countrywide protests over the brutal torture and gangrape of a woman in Delhi last month.
"Atrocities on women, both in urban and rural India are a blot on our collective conscience and a matter of shame," Gandhi said while addressing the 'Chitan Shivir'.
The issues behind urban street protests last year, such as corruption and safety of women, which shook the government, must be proactively taken up, she said.
"We see various protest movements across the country, relating to land, forest, water and livelihood, tribal and gender issues. Our party must proactively take up these causes," said Gandhi.
She exhorted party leaders to understand the new India, keeping in mind the flash mobs that sprang up in the national capital on the gang-rape issue and caught the government unawares.
"We have to recognise the new changing India, an India increasingly peopled by a younger, more aspirational, more impatient, more demanding and a better-educated generation," she said.
"Our youth is getting more assertive, it wants its voice to be heard," she said.
