Khan sahib,
Agreed, caste based system of jatis has also not delivered the expected result. The only criteria can be economic backwardness.
Affirmative action was always there, it started with the set up of Aligarh Muslim University and there are many institutes for minorities’ all over the country but still they are not able to produce desired result.
Finally, rather dealing this issue seriously, for all political parties, it is just a vote-bank politics. So sometimes they flag this issue just to raise their political status, Muslims have political representation in India even parties like BJP has Muslim leaders but still none of them are concerned about it. They just come on dais when they find it as a lucrative issue and go back once this issue goes down.
And this is not good for democracy.