The second in Glass' trilogy about men who changed the world, Satyagraha's sub-text is politics.

The opera is semi-narrative in form and deals with Mahatma Gandhi's early years in South Africa and his development of non-violent protest into a political tool. (Satyagraha is a Sanskrit word meaning 'truth force'). The first two acts each contain three scenes; the last is one continuous scene.

Each act is dominated by a single historic figure (non-singing role) overlooking the action from above: the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore in Act I, the Russian author Leo Tolstoy in act II, the American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., in Act III