I've had similar experiences over the years. The Indian devs who were worth their salt were salaried employees; the ones that took all the ELI5 hand-holding were the contractors who seemed to have just graduated from a 60-day programming bootcamp and wouldn't tell you they had a problem and needed help if their lives depended on it.

I have always attributed this to the management of the consulting companies that supply the contractors - they're all about the billable hours, and quality control isn't really their problem so they don't focus on it.