The hardline leader of Tibet has branded the Dalai Lama a “monster” as it emerged that Tibetan students in Beijing have been ordered to effectively renounce any allegiance to their god-king.

Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party Secretary in Tibet, said that the struggle to crush the unrest in the deeply Buddhist Himalayan region involved nothing less than the stability of the entire country.

That battle by China to reassert control over its restive Tibetan population has now drawn in students attending schools and universities in Beijing.

They are required to provide four answers, Tibetan sources told The Times. First, they must write a reply to the question “What position does the Dalai Lama occupy in your heart?” Second, they must provide the address and place of work of their parents. Third, they must give details of their own identity card. Finally, they must guarantee not to take part in any political activities.

Many of Tibet’s most promising students are sent to Chinese schools and universities outside the Himalayan region by parents eager to ensure they receive an education in Mandarin Chinese – the official language of China and an important tool to a good career.

One parent said: “How can they ask children of 17 or 18 to write such a political document. These children can barely even speak Tibetan. Does the government have so little trust in Tibetans that it even requires children to make such an allegiance?”

The demand that students effectively denounce the Dalai Lama, declared only on Tuesday by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as an enemy of China, highlights the nervousness among Communist Party authorities at the continued influence the 14th reincarnation of the Ocean of Wisdom still wields among Tibetans.

Mr Zhang, addressing a meeting in Lhasa, issued a blistering tirade against the 72-year-old monk, who has lived in exile in India since he fled Lhasa in a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

“We are in the midst of a fierce struggle involving blood and fire, a life and death struggle with the Dalai clique."

The hardline party boss, launching a campaign to restore Chinese authority in Lhasa after a deadly riot last Friday in which Tibetan mobs stabbed, hacked and burnt to death several ethnic Han Chinese, is presiding over house-to-house searches for those involved.

He said: “As long as we... remain of one heart, turn the masses into a walled city and work together to attack the enemy, then we can safeguard social stability and achieve a full victory in this intense battle against separatism."

The leader who, since taking up his post two years ago, has imposed a series of new restrictions banning all government servants from attending religious ceremonies, said the Dalai Lama clique was bent on separating the Tibetan region from Chinese rule and was seeking to use the period before the Beijing Olympic Games in August to foment unrest.

"The Dalai Lama is a wolf wrapped in a habit, a monster with human face and animal's heart."

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