VAHEGURU JI KA KHALSA, VAHEGURU JI KI FATEH
From my meager understanding of the concepts:
The concept of revenge is to make someone else hurt as much as you are. If they do something, you do something back that you percieve balances the pain inflicted on you. It is motivated by a sense that one must be paid back in kind (though the form may not exactly be the same - i.e. you kill my dog, I kill your dog), but is based on the perception of what you consider to be an appropriate payback (i.e. you kill my dog, I kill your family). It arises out of a personal/communal sense of getting back at a person/group. For instance, the genocide of Sikhs in 1984 can be seen at least partially motivated by revenge for Indira Gandhi's assassination (apart from other motivations). There is a definite emotional component to it and it may very well arise from injury to the ego and from the 5 Vikaars.
Justice's main purpose is to issue punishment and corrections to keep society in balance and maintain social order or establish a certain boundary that should not be crossed. If you listen to a lot of the Sikhs from the movement, they stated they had no personal resentment against the person, but rather the actions that were being conducted. Justice is supposed to be blind, in which the emotional factors are removed from the evaluation of punishment and the crime is judged according to its factors. In the U.S., this is the reason of the impartial jury, so that a panel of everyday people will hear the facts and make a decision based on them (in theory). So justice's motivation is to ensure that the laws/regulations/parameters established are maintained and variations from such parameters are kept in check by negative reinforcement (discouraging deviations from the parameters by punishment). The punishment may be just as severe as in revenge (i.e. death penalty), but the weighing of the punishment is done by evaluating the facts and established precedences of appropriate punishment. That said, it would be woefully ignorant to say that emotions and outrage at a crime committed and bias do not creep into the justice system.
Per the Sikhs, the concept of justice seems to hold sway. The Zafarnama holds the evidence, in which Guru Gobind Singh Ji made the charges abundantly clear to Aurangzeb, but also stated that if the Almighty commanded him to meet with Aurangzeb, he would. To raise the sword after all peaceful means have been exhausted also speak to the ideal of justice, in which a stepwise process is taken up to attempt to exact justice by all available means possible. Guru Gobind Singh Ji dispatched Bhai Gurbaksh Singh (Banda Singh Bahadur) when he knew that no punishment would ever be meted out to the perpetrators of the war crime against the Chhote Sahibzadae - the crime was the mercilessly torture and killing of children, which is a violation of any religious ethic. The leveling of Sirhind was because the crime was so repugnant that Sirhind would serve as an example of the consequences of violating basic human ethics and committing appalling crimes against humanity. The Zafarnama laid out the charges very clearly of lying and broken promises as the basis of the chiding letter. Guru Sahib never sought redress for the Shaheedi of the Elder Sahibzadae, because their death on the battlefield was a "just death" - it is part and parcel of war. If the Masands were boiled alive by Dassam Patshah (highlighted because it is the most sever punishment that I could recall the Guru ever proclaiming), it was to illustrate that to deceive and rob the Sikh Sangat was a such a grave crime that deserved such a severe punishment. . It's task was to deter any such crime from being perpetrated against the Sikh Sangatan. Imagine the state of the Sikh administrative bodies if the threat of such corrective action was prevalent today - the SGPC and the Akali Dals would be serving the Sikhs to no end because this negative reinforcement keeps people in check. The tankah of the Punj Pyare are also to correct errant behavior of an erring Sikh and is not motivated by a feeling of having to exact revenge for wrongs committed. Sikhs never undertook personal revenge missions - they undertook missions to set clear negative reinforcement to those who perprtrated crimes that were so clearly in violation of Dharma (being used here as a general set of human rights and principles). Hence Dharam Yudh - its very motivation is to fight to correct the violation of Dharma. One sakhi I recall of my father is when a Brahmin reportted the child of a Sikh to the Mughal regime. The Sikh child was killed. Then, the Brahmin's child was captured and was to be killed. The Brahmin had no choice but to seek assistance from the very Sikh whose child was killed. The Sikh readily provided assistance because it was a violation of Dharma to meaninglessly kill children. It may very well be that the negative reinforcement is not severe enough in the Western world, as it gauged by the overfilling jails with career criminals - if it does not promote visceral fear of the consequences committing a crime, what sort of deterrent is it? While the Sikhs have been taught forgiveness, we were also taught that there are general rules and ethics of fair, human treatment and if justice is not being provided, you must not sit idly by to allow it to remain so, because such ignorance of crimes promotes further atrocities. Sakhis are plentiful where Sikhs personally never took revenge or sought redress for personal losses, but took up arms and fought like furious Lions for the sake of preserving Dharma.
Forward to modern day in the movement, the Sikhs Shaheeds lived up to this legacy. When the government was told over and over to obtain justice, they were not only silent, but complicit in the atrocities committed against the Sikhs. When the very agents who are supposed to enforce justice are criminals, then what means are left to obtain peaceful justice? Bibi Amarjit Kaur, after the Shaheedi of Bhai Fauja Singh, stated on camera (it is on Youtube) that she harbors no resentment against Indira Gandhi. Sant Jarnail Singh Ji stated time and time again that the Sikhs were looking to be treated fairly and not as second class citizens of the country. Who was there to provide justice for the Sikhs? When the very system that is set up to provide justice is a failure and turned against the Sikhs, who then are they to comment on what standards the Sikhs used to obtain justice? Blowing Gobind Ram and Beanta to bits - what other means was there to stop their atrocities? Those who butchered tens of thousands - their gruesome deaths served to stop their crimes and possibly give other potentials pause before committing such acts themselves. I will not be ignorant of the fact that some Sikhs may very well have taken revenge for crimes committed against them, but that is not what the ideals of Sikhism have embraced.
Bhul Chuk Maaf.
ਸਤਿਗੁਰਬਚਨਕਮਾਵਣੇਸਚਾਏਹੁਵੀਚਾਰੁ॥