Carlo Coppola, Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970: The Progressive Episode (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2017), Chapter 4, Note 25, pp. 165-66:

This speech was reproduced in Hans, July 1936, in a Hindi translation from either an English or Urdu original; this Hindi version appears as the title article in Premchand, Sahitya ka Uddeshya (The Purpose of Literature, 1936) (Allahabad: Hans Prakashan, 1967), 9-26.

The Urdu version first appeared in Naya Adab (Jan.-Feb. 1941) and is reproduced in Premchand, 'Adab ki Gharaz-o-Ghayat' (The Purpose and Purview of Literature), Mazamin-i-Premchand (Essays of Premchand), ed. Q. Rais (Aligarh: Yuniv. Pub., 1960), 234-53.

A somewhat inaccurate English translation appears in Hans Raj Rahbar, Premchand, His Life and Work (Delhi: Atma Ram & Sons, 1957), 165-82.

Carlo Coppola, personal communication, November 2018:

I'm not sure whether Premchand spoke from an Urdu version or a Hindi version. I would speculate (wildly, to be sure) that it was from an Urdu one, as a salute to the Urdu organizers, the preponderance of Urdu-wallas in attendance, and the venue, Lucknow University. I have not come across any statement about whether the language was Urdu or Hindi.

Carlo Coppola, *"Premchand's Address to the First Meeting of the All-India Progressive Writers Association: Some Speculations (A case of ghost-writing?),"* in the Journal of South Asian Literature 21,2 (Summer, Fall 1986), special "Essays on Premchand" issue, pp. 21-39.

 
Some of the attendees at the meeting, courtesy of Carlo Coppola (from an India Today article in 1986, with identifying information provided by Mohsin Abdullah):

  -- "The Shroud" index page -- *Platts Dictionary Online* -- FWP's main page --