Editing Premchand (section)

==== Adoption of the name Premchand ====
In 1909, Premchand was transferred to [[Mahoba]] and later posted to [[Hamirpur district, Uttar Pradesh|Hamirpur]] as the Sub-deputy Inspector of Schools.<ref>{{Harvnb | Sigi | 2006 | p = 27 }}</ref> Around this time, ''Soz-e-Watan'' was noticed by British Government officials, who banned it as a seditious work. James Samuel Stevenson, the British [[District magistrate|collector]] of [[Hamirpur district, Uttar Pradesh|Hamirpur district]] ordered a raid on Premchand's house, where around five hundred copies of ''Soz-e-Watan'' were burnt.<ref name="SahniPaliwal1980">{{cite book | last1=Sahni |first1=Bhisham |author-link1=Bhisham Sahni|last2=Paliwal |first2=Om Prakash | title=Prem Chand: A Tribute | year=1980 | publisher=Premchand Centenary Celebrations Committee }}</ref> After this, Munshi Daya Narain Nigam, the editor of the Urdu magazine ''Zamana'', who had published Dhanpat Rai's first story "Duniya ka Sabse Anmol Ratan" advised the pseudonym "Premchand". Dhanpat Rai stopped using the name "Nawab Rai" and became Premchand.

Premchand was often referred to as Munshi Premchand. The fact is, he, along with Kanhaiyalal Munshi, edited the magazine Hans. The credit line read "Munshi, Premchand". He thenceforth began being called Munshi Premchand.{{cn|date=November 2023}} In 1914, Premchand started writing in Hindi ([[Hindi]] and [[Urdu]] are considered different [[register (sociolinguistics)|registers]] of a single language [[Hindustani language|Hindustani]], with Hindi drawing much of its vocabulary from [[Sanskrit]] and Urdu being more influenced by [[Persian language|Persian]]). By this time, he was already reputed as a fiction writer in Urdu.<ref name="pib_2001_great"/> [[Sumit Sarkar]] notes that the switch was prompted by the difficulty of finding publishers in Urdu.<ref name="Sarkar1983">{{cite book|last=Sarkar|first=Sumit |author-link=Sumit Sarkar|title=Modern India, 1885–1947|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x1uBQgAACAAJ|year=1983|publisher=Macmillan|isbn=978-0-333-90425-1|pages=85–86}}</ref> His first Hindi story "Saut" was published in the magazine ''[[Saraswati (magazine)|Saraswati]]'' in December 1915, and his first short story collection ''Sapta Saroj'' was published in June 1917.