Abstract: Millions of poor households across the developing world rely on migration to navigate economic uncertainty. In poor rural areas, where viable livelihood opportunities are scarce, insurance markets underdeveloped, and government protections against economic insecurity minimal, migration serves as a critical mechanism for household risk diversification. While a substantial body of research has documented the welfare and developmental impacts of migration flows, their political implications remain less understood. In this paper, I argue that access to private self-insurance mechanisms, such as migration, can undermine collective action and foster political disengagement  among remaining populations. I evaluate this argument in India, the world's largest democracy, which hosts an estimated 100 million internal economic migrants. To do so, I first conduct a difference-in-differences analysis of nationally representative panel data to demonstrate that household migration reduces citizen claim-making over the state. To explore the mechanisms of disengagement, I combine extensive qualitative fieldwork with observational data from an original survey of 1,532 households in a high-migration corridor. I find evidence consistent with migration substituting for welfare services traditionally provided by the state, and weakening incentives among non-migrating family members to politicize their grievances. These findings have significant implications for democratic accountability in the Global South.