Adoption of the name Premchand

In 1909, Premchand was transferred to Mahoba, and later posted to Hamirpur as the Sub deputy Inspector of Schools.Around this time, Soz e Watan was noticed by the British Government officials, who banned it as a seditious work. The British collector of the Hamirpur District ordered a raid on Premchands house, where around five hundred copies of Soz e Watan were burnt.Subsequently, Dhanpat Rai had to change his pseudonym from Nawab Rai to Premchand.In 1914, Premchand started writing in Hindi (Hindi and Urdu are considered different registers of a single language Hindustani, with Hindi drawing much of its vocabulary from Sanskrit and Urdu being more influenced by Persian). By this time, he was already reputed as a fiction writer in Urdu. His first Hindi story Saut was published in the magazine Saraswati in December 1915, and his first short story collection Sapta Saroj was published in June 1917.