“Shed No More Blood”: The Naga Mothers’ Association and Indigenous Feminist Peace Politics in Nagaland

This essay examines the Naga Mothers’ Association (NMA) as a pioneering indigenous feminist organization whose activism spans maternal mourning, grassroots peacebuilding, and political advocacy. Emerging in the 1980s amid armed conflict between Naga insurgents and the Indian state, the NMA’s appeal “Shed No More Blood” began as a mourning ritual and evolved into a sustained political discourse. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with NMA leaders, the essay explores how maternal identity became both a source of moral authority and a tool for challenging militarized patriarchy. Through culturally rooted yet subversive forms of negotiated activism, the NMA bridged informal diplomacy and formal political participation. Its decades-long campaign for 33% reservation in local governance culminated in a landmark electoral breakthrough in 2024. This essay argues that "Shed No More Blood" is a generative feminist praxis that turns grief into grassroots power rather than just a humanitarian appeal. By providing a framework for indigenous women’s agency in militarized, culturally complex societies, the NMA challenges prevailing models of feminism and peace.